Preamble

The House met at half-past Two o'clock

PRAYERS

[Mr. SPEAKER in the Chair]

PETITION

Welsh Sunday Closing

Mr. Grenfell: I beg to present a humble Petition signed by 100 citizens of South Wales and Monmouthshire. This Petition shows that they have been requested by 105,775 of their fellow citizens over 18 years of age to join with them in expressing most emphatically and sincerely their opposition to any interference with the Welsh Sunday Closing Act. The Petition concludes:
Wherefore your Petitioners pray that Parliament will graciously retain the present legislation.
And your petitioners, as in duty bound, will ever pray.
To lie upon the Table.

Oral Answers to Questions — ROADS

Watling Street, Warwickshire

Mr. Moss: asked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation what steps are being taken to make safer the stretch of Watling Street from entering Grendon to beyond Dordon in the County of Warwick.

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport and Civil Aviation (Mr. Hugh Molson): No immediate steps are contemplated. A widening of the carriageway would make conditions safer but I cannot yet say when it will be possible to fit the widening of this particular length of road into the general road programme.

Mr. Moss: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the chief constable of Warwickshire has said that 203 accidents have taken place in a period of three

years, and that immediate steps ought to be taken to make this road safer?

Mr. Molson: We believe that the only satisfactory way of dealing with this problem will be to widen the road. We intend to do that but there are, even on this same trunk road, stretches where the work is even more urgent than it is here.

Mr. Moss: asked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation the number of accidents which have taken place along Watling Street from entering Grendon to beyond Dordon in the County of Warwick, giving figures for a recent convenient period, and showing accidents which were fatal and non-fatal.

Mr. Molson: During the year ended 30th April, 1956, sixty-three accidents were reported by the police on this stretch of road. Of these, four were fatal, twenty-one resulted in non-fatal injuries and thirty-eight resulted in damage to property only.

Mr. Moss: Is the right hon. Gentleman aware that I have been profoundly moved by the cruel accidents which have taken place along this murderous stretch of road, which is regarded as a black spot in Warwickshire, and that short-term and long-term plans ought to be made to improve it?

Mr. Molson: I am very doubtful whether any short-term plans would be effective for this purpose. The road is quite straight, and I think it is only by widening it that we shall obtain any substantial improvement. We are anxious to do that as soon as it is possible to do so.

London-Brighton Road, Redhill

Mr. Vaughan-Morgan: asked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation what action he is taking on the resolution of the Reigate Corporation drawing his attention to the difficulties experienced by pedestrians and other forms of traffic in trying to cross the London-Brighton Road A23 at its junction with Hooley Lane and Mill Street. Redhill, particularly at weekends and peak periods.

Mr. Molson: The council has now been told that when land near the junction has been acquired, consideration will be given to the carrying out of a small widening scheme, in advance of a more comprehensive improvement, to enable a refuge to be provided to help pedestrians.

D Ring Road (Route)

Mr. Beswick: asked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation if he is aware of the anxiety created among many residents of Ickenham by the proposal to route the D ring road through that district; the reasons for this proposed change in the route; when he expects a final decision to be made; and when he estimates work on the road in that area will be started.

The Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation(Mr. Harold Watkinson): Yes, Sir. I received a protest from the Ickenham Residents' Association but as the proposed road is the responsibility of the Middlesex County Council I have referred it to that council. I understand that the county council is now considering a number of possible lines of route between Western Avenue and the proposed Aylesbury Radial, but until I receive its proposals I am unable to make any further comment.

Mr. Beswick: Does not the Minister appreciate that an absolute blight is hanging over the homes involved so long as these proposals are being discussed, and that the people are unable to sell their property if they are compelled, for other reasons, to move? Will he do all he can to ensure that a decision is reached as speedily as possible so that the people may know what their position is?

Mr. Watkinson: I do not at all disagree with what the hon. Gentleman says. It places property owners in a most difficult position when there are doubts of this kind. I hope that what has been said in the House may also spur on the local authorities to a decision.

Oral Answers to Questions — CIVIL AVIATION

London Airport

Mr. Knox Cunningham: asked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation the number of days during each of the past three years on which poor visibility has prevented aeroplanes landing at or taking off from London Airport and the aggregate number of hours of such interference in each of the past three years.

The Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Transport and Civil Aviation(Mr. John Profumo): The lowest declared visibility for operations at

London Airport is 150 yards. Visibility fell below this figure for more than one hour on forty-three days in 1953, on twelve days in 1954 and on eighteen days in 1955. The aggregate number of hours in each year was 200 hours in 1953, 60 hours in 1954 and 117 hours in 1955.

Mr. Knox Cunningham: Does my hon. Friend agree that it would be of great advantage to air transport if these delays at London Airport could be cut out, and if the airport could become one which is used at all stages of visibility?

Mr. Profumo: One has to remember that there are diversionary airports to which the companies can operate in the case of fog. It must also be realised that F.I.D.O. will only clear fog; it will not clear low cloud, heavy rain or snow, which are responsible for some of the conditions that my hon. Friend has in mind.

Mr. Beswick: Does the Joint Parliamentary Secretary recall that when I gave that Answer six years ago there were howls of derision from the opposite benches, and that hon. Gentlemen opposite demanded F.I.D.O. before the next winter? Are we to understand that still no decision has been made?

Mr. Profumo: I am glad to know that the hon. Gentleman has not joined in any howls of derision at the Answer which I have just given.

Mr. Knox Cunningham: asked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation whether he will state the estimated cost of installing F.I.D.O. at London Airport: and the estimated annual running cost of such an installation.

Mr. Profumo: The cost of installing a full F.I.D.O. system at London Airport was last estimated in 1954 at £335,000, and the annual standing charges at £74,000. These figures should now be increased by about 15 per cent. Annual fuel costs depend, of course, on how often the system is used in any year, but. assuming 1,000 burns spread between take-offs and landings, the annual fuel cost estimated at the time was £154,000. and would now be about £160,000.

Mr. Knox Cunningham: Are those figures based on the addition of a percentage, or are they based on more recent


estimates than those of I953? Can my hon. Friend also say how they compare with the similar work in the U.S.A.?

Mr. Profumo: I am afraid I cannot answer the last part of my hon. Friend's question, except that I can say that the tests in America proved to be unsuccessful. We are anxious to obtain more accurate figures than I have been able to give my hon. Friend, and only when we have managed to assess the cost of clearing various degrees of fog shall we be able to give a realistic assessment of the extent to which F.I.D.O. at London Airport would be economic to operate.

Mr Commodore Harvey: Will my hon. Friend bear in mind that if the equipment saves even one aircraft from a fatal accident it will be cheap at the price? Will he confirm that the Government have not definitely ruled it out but will watch it all the time, with a view, should it prove to be practicable, to installing it at London Airport?

Mr. Profumo: I can give an assurance that the Government have not completely ruled it out. That is why joint experiments are to be carried out at a Royal Air Force station. The purpose is to enable us finally to make more realistic assessments.

Mr. Beswick: Can the hon. Gentleman say whether the figures which he has quoted relate to the lower-cost apparatus burning heavy oil, or has he overlooked this recent development?

Mr. Profumo: The figures relate to apparatus burning heavy oil.

Mr. Knox Cunningham: asked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation whether he will state the estimated increase in traffic likely to result from the installation of F.I.D.O. at London Airport, with reference to passenger numbers and volume of freight or money value in sterling.

Mr. Profumo: I regret that I have not sufficient information to enable a satisfactory estimate to be made.

Mr. Knox Cunningham: Has my hon. Friend considered not only the saving which would be made by an increase in traffic but the safety factor, mentioned just now by my hon. and gallant Friend

the Member for Macclesfield (Air Commodore Harvey), which would have a very considerable bearing on the matter?

Mr. Profumo: I should not like the House to believe that at the present stage of F.I.D.O. experiments it could be regarded as wholly safe. One has not only to bring one's aircraft down; one has also to be able to bring it in to land safely, and if there is only a narrow area which is cleared of fog, there may be difficulties if one runs off the runway into the fog. It is because of that sort of thing that my right hon. Friend is right to seek an accurate assessment before putting the apparatus on the market for commercial use of any sort.

Mr. Hunter: asked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation whether he will give an approximate date when a commencement will be made on the building of the underground motor garage at London Airport.

Mr. Profumo: No, Sir.

Mr. Hunter: May I ask the Minister to pay special attention to the need for an underground motor garage at London Airport, the need for which is very urgent? Can the Minister announce a date when the project will be commenced?

Mr. Profumo: I think it is more likely that an above-ground multi-storey car park will have to be built. That cannot be planned in isolation. The planning of the centre area layout is now under active consideration.

Traffic Airways (Regulations)

Mr. Beswick: asked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation when the new regulations for the traffic airways will be put into effect; and what interim action has been taken to minimise the risk of collision.

Mr. Watkinson: I am consulting the principal civil users of the air on this problem. Their views will be urgently studied with the flying Departments, and I shall bring the necessary changes into effect as soon as possible.
In the meantime, civil pilots are being reminded by Notice to Airmen of the importance of maintaining a good lookout, even when flying under air traffic control clearances. I also propose to


increase the visibility and cloud clearances governing visual flight rules, and on this my Department is discussing concerted action with other European countries. I understand that the Service Departments have already taken action along these lines, and have prohibited any manœuvre within the airways, irrespective of the weather, which would seriously restrict the pilot's view.

Mr. Beswick: Might I express appreciation of the fact that the Minister has used the word "urgent"? There is definitely an element of urgency about the problem. Can he assure the House, as he appeared to be doing in the latter part of his Answer, that there is no reluctance on the part of Service Ministries to accept proper control to ensure safety for both Service and civil users?

Mr. Watkinson: Everybody concerned—I mean everybody—is co-operating very well, but it is a very difficult problem. In the meantime, the very considerable increase in the visual flight rules may help a little. However, we have to solve the main problem. and all are doing their best.

Oral Answers to Questions — TRANSPORT

Transport Charges Act, 1954 (Application)

Mr. Ernest Davies: asked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation whether he will introduce legislation amending Section 2 (4) and Part III of the Transport Charges, etc. (Miscellaneous Provisions) Act, 1954, to limit its application to municipally-owned transport undertakings and to exclude privately-owned independent statutory undertakings from its provisions which permit the raising of fares without reference to the licensing authorities.

Mr. Watkinson: No, Sir. So far as I know there is only one privately-owned undertaking which can take advantage of these provisions, and I have no evidence that it is abusing the position.

Mr. Davies: When the Bill was passing through the House, were not hon. Members given to understand that this provision would apply only to certain

local authorities? Is it not a fact that the company to which the right hon. Gentleman refers, the Mexborough and Swinton Traction Company, raised its fares on 1st January, 1956, that it did not have to refer to either the licensing authority or the Minister, and that the local councils concerned have no right of objection? What opportunity have the passengers to object to the increase in fares when they are given no protection?

Mr. Watkinson: It is only fair to the company to say that it merely added 1d. to certain workmen's fares. Therefore, I do not think that it is abusing its position. I could not at the moment undertake to legislate for the sake of the one company.

Mr. Davies: As it has been discovered, since the Bill passed through the House, that this company can take advantage of the provision, can the right hon. Gentleman give an assurance that there are no other companies which are likely to discover that they come within the terms of the provision?

Mr. Watkinson: As I am advised at the moment, this is the only company affected.

Transport Commission (River Bank Maintenance)

11. Mr. G. Jeger: asked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation what representations he has received from river boards alleging neglect of their responsibilities by the British Transport Commission in regard to the maintenance of river banks; and what general directions he has given as a result.

Mr. Watkinson: None, Sir.

Mr. Jeger: Do I take it from the right hon. Gentleman's reply that he has received no representations from the Yorkshire Ouse River Board complaining that the British Transport Commission is neglecting to maintain the banks of the River Ouse below Goole? Is he prepared to receive representations from me putting the case forward?

Mr. Watkinson: Yes, Sir, certainly.

Traffic Control (Helicopters)

Mr. Awbery: asked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation what experiments have been made by his Department in the use of helicopters for


the direction of road traffic in and out of our large cities and coastal resorts during the peak hours of traffic; and if they will be continued during the summer period.

Mr. Watkinson: Traffic control is primarily a matter for the police, and I understand that a number of police forces have on occasion used helicopters to assist in controlling crowds and traffic.

Mr. Awbery: Is the Minister aware that such is the traffic from our large cities to our coastal resorts during the summer period that if something is not done very shortly there will be chaos everywhere? Will he do something to change the present system and control this traffic during the summer period?

Mr. Watkinson: As I have said, it is not my job primarily to control the traffic. I shall have certain proposals to put to the people concerned for the August holiday period, when we may well expect the densest traffic. I want to make it plain that it is not primarily my task to deal with traffic as such. That is a matter for the police.

Mr. Gresham Cooke: In view of the anxiety that I feel for a large number of our colleagues today, can my right hon. Friend give an assurance that hclicopter control is being used over Epsom?

Lighting-up Time Arrangements

Mr. Gresham Cooke: asked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation if he will now introduce legislation to make lighting-up time in the summer months half-an-hour after sunset.

Mr. Watkinson: I am considering making provision in the Road Traffic Bill now before Parliament for some change in the present lighting-up time arrangements.

Mr. Gresham Cooke: Will my right hon. Friend impress on the noble Lord in charge of the Road Traffic Bill in the House of Lords the importance of getting, if possible, an Amendment into the Bill about lighting-up time?

Mr. Watkinson: That is what I have said I am considering.

Rural Areas

Mr. Baldwin: asked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation what further proposals he has for the improvement of rural transport.

Mr. Molson: This matter was debated on 24th April since when, in relation to the point which I understand my hon. Friend has particularly in mind, I have been informed that the British Transport Commission is preparing to experiment with a further type of diesel rail car. It is hoped that trials will begin in August.

Mr. Baldwin: May I thank my right hon. Friend for taking practical steps to deal with a problem which affects a great many parts of the country; and may I ask whether, when the Ministry makes a decision on this experiment, careful watch will be kept on overheads, because it is the opinion of some of us that figures for overheads are not very reliable when applied to the running of any branch line?

Mr. Molson: It is clear that overheads have to be taken into account in considering the maintenance of any line, but we will certainly take into account what my hon. Friend has said.

Mr. Paget: Surely it is quite unnecessary to take into account the whole of one's overheads when one is considering a marginal activity?

Mr. Molson: The British Transport Commission is considering the question of keeping open one particular line. In regard to marginal activities, it takes into account only marginal overheads.

Transport Commission (Road Vehicles)

Mr. Ernest Davies: asked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation how many fewer vehicles representing 36,000 tons unladen weight than the 7,750 originally proposed, it is now proposed should be retained by the British Transport Commission.

Mr. Watkinson: One hundred and one, Sir, under the Commission's present proposals.

Mr. Davies: Why is it that when the Bill was going through the House hon. Members were not informed that the Government had decided that the Commission was not to be allowed to retain vehicles up to the number recommended by Sir Malcolm Trustram Eve? Is it not a fact that, since the Government have decided that they shall not have licences for 7½ per cent. of the retained vehicles, and now they have whittled down the number of vehicles to be retained by a


further 101, the Commission will be allowed to retain only 7,067 instead of 7,750?

Mr. Watkinson: The hon. Member is looking this gift horse rather too closely in the mouth. The fact is that the Commission can still keep that number of lorries, if it wishes to do so. It is still able to do so. It will merely mean that it will have to change the tonnage of some of the lorries.

Oral Answers to Questions — SHIPPING

Oil Pollution

Mr. Awbery: asked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation if he will, in addition to making it an offence to eject oil and oily water into the sea within certain distances from the coast, an offence which can rarely be detected, also take steps to make it compulsory for all oil-carrying and oil-burning vessels using British ports to be equipped with efficient oil separators in order to reduce the danger to sea birds, shell fish and our beaches.

Mr. Watkinson: I propose to make Regulations under the Oil in Navigable Waters Act, 1955, requiring dry-cargo ships registered in the United Kingdom which use their fuel tanks for water ballast to be equipped with oily water separators. Such apparatus is not necessary in other classes of ships. I do not propose at present to extend the requirement to ships of other flags when using our ports.

Mr. Awbery: Will not the Minister insist on the installation of these separators not only in oil-burning but oil-carrying vessels? The ship owners up to now have protested because of the expense—that it is uneconomic—but the expense to the local authorities of cleaning the beaches and the loss of our birds and fishes is very serious. The Minister ought to give serious consideration to the problem.

Mr. Watkinson: The hon. Gentleman had better study the Regulations, and then perhaps he would like to put down another Question.

Mr. Callaghan: asked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation when he

will be ready to make regulations, under the Oil in Navigable Waters Act, to prevent the discharge of oil in the sea.

Mr. Watkinson: Within the next few days I shall make the necessary Order to bring into operation the Oil in Navigable Waters Act, 1955, and also make a number of Regulations under it. The Order and Regulations will not, however, become operative for three months because advance advice of their provisions must be given to the masters of United Kingdom registered ships where-ever they may be.

Mr. Callaghan: May I congratulate the Minister on the United Kingdom being the first of the forty nations at the last conference to sign this Convention and to issue Regulations? May I ask the Minister whether he is aware that, even though he has gone so far, there will still be a very considerable problem until other nations have ratified, and that, even then, until we get total prohibition of the discharge of oil into the water we cannot expect complete satisfaction?

Mr. Watkinson: I quite agree. This is only the beginning of the task but, as the hon. Gentleman kindly said, it is a good beginning. I am grateful to him and to his Committee, which has done so much to bring public opinion to bear on this question. If that work can go on, I hope that, combined with these Regulations, a sensible improvement will result.

Sir H. Roper: May I ask my right hon. Friend whether he has had time to read a letter which I sent last week reporting a fresh influx of oil at Newquay, and may I inform him that I have received a similar report today from Bude? Can my right hon. Friend say whether these Regulations will serve to protect our shores from oil during the present season?

Mr. Watkinson: The answer is that at the moment there are bound to be some influxes of oil, but I am advised that the general position along the north Cornish coast is better than it was, and that when these Regulations take effect, as they will start to take effect from the date on which they are laid because shipowners will be taking action, I think that we shall see an improvement.

Mr. Hayman: May I ask the Minister to bear in mind that the oil pollution on the Cornish coast this year is very much worse than it was last year?

Mr. Watkinson: That has not been my advice, but I will certainly inquire into what the hon. Gentleman has suggested.

Cardiff Docks (Trade)

Mr. Callaghan: asked the Minister of Transport and Civil Aviation if he is aware of the low level of trade at present passing through Cardiff docks as compared with other ports; and what action he is taking to encourage a greater use of its facilities.

Mr. Watkinson: I am aware that Cardiff, like many other ports, has suffered from a loss of coal exports. As regards other traffic, it is for importers and exporters, in co-operation with shipowners, to choose the ports they use. I cannot influence them in favour of a particular port, but the British Transport Commission, and local interests are, I know, doing all they can to encourage the use of Cardiff docks.

Mr. Callaghan: Is the Minister aware that Cardiff dock workers are quite unable to understand why they should be unemployed at a time when other ports are congested? Can the right hon. Gentleman give any reason why that should be so, and what can be done to put it right?

Mr. Watkinson: I have given the reason. Unfortunately, the prime reason is the loss of coal exports, for which the port was primarily designed. It is only fair to say that the British Transport Commission and the other local interests, as I think the hon. Gentleman knows, have been trying to find some replacement for that loss of traffic. As it is the loss of traffic of a basic export, it is a very difficult job to do.

Mr. J. Griffiths: Will the right hon. Gentleman say whether or not he accepts for the Government some responsibility to help a port which for generations has contributed so richly to the wealth of the country, and which, through changes in economic circumstances, now finds itself in this position? Would not he accept the responsibility of approaching ship owners and asking them to use the facilities of this splendid port?

Mr. Watkinson: A great deal has been done. Do I take it that the right hon. Gentleman is really saying that Cardiff will never regain any coal exports because there will never be any coal to export?

Mr. Griffiths: It may be that as part of our national policy we find it better to use the coal at home and derive more advantage from it, but that ought not to prevent the Minister from doing something to help Cardiff.

Oral Answers to Questions — MINISTRY OF DEFENCE

National Service

Mr. Yates: asked the Minister of Defence if he has considered the recent announcement of the Soviet Government of their intention to reduce their armed forces by 1,200,000; and, if, in view of this further lessening of international tension, Her Majesty's Government will make a similar gesture especially favouring a speedy ending of compulsory National Service.

The Minister of Defence (Sir Walter Monckton): I would refer to the reply which I gave on 30th May to the right hon. Member for Easington (Mr. Shinwell) and the hon. Member for Birmingham, All Saints (Mr. D. Howell).

Mr. Yates: Do not those replies mean that the Government are not considering any further reduction in the Armed Forces beyond what was decided upon before Russia made this announcement? In view of the fact that this reduction of 1,200,000 is the largest reduction that has ever been proposed, is not it worthy of a gesture which would meet the situation and lead us nearer to disarmament?

Sir W. Monckton: The first thing I would say is that, as I pointed out on 30th May, we are already engaged on a substantial reduction of our Armed Forces. Next I said, and I say again, that I do not think it would be right to make any further gesture or move now until we have ascertained the effect of the changes—we hope, changes in recruitment and prolongation of engagements.

Mr. Hunter: asked the Minister of Defence whether he will take steps to abolish the call-up of National Service men for the fifteen days' annual training.

Sir W. Monckton: The policy of Her Majesty's Government remains as set out in the White Paper on National Service, Cmd. 9608.

Mr. Hunter: Arising out of that reply, will the Minister give serious consideration to the whole question of the dislocation of family life, industry and commerce, and also the financial expense to the nation? Is it worth retaining this period of fifteen clays' annual training?

Sir W. Monckton: It is important that we should not give up the annual training period—it is twenty days rather than fifteen—because it has certainly been found to be necessary in some Services.

Mr. Shinwell: Is the Minister aware that only the other day his colleague, the Minister of Labour and National Service, stated from that Bench that it was no longer the policy of the Government to continue National Service for the original purpose of training large bodies of reserves? If that is so, what is the purpose of retaining the fifteen days' training period? Is the Minister aware that most of the time occupied by the men concerned is completely wasted?

Sir W. Monckton: It is quite clearly essential that we should be able to get hold of a certain number of them. For instance, in the case of the Royal Navy, linguists and communication specialists are called up for a period. The Royal Navy and the Royal Air Force do not find it necessary to call up so many as the Army do, but as matters stand at present the Army needs these reservists to be available.

Mr. Shinwell: Will the Minister be good enough to make some investigation into this matter? Is it not clear that he is not completely informed upon the matter, and that he might have some consultations with his right hon. Friends in the Service Departments? The whole matter is a waste of time.

Sir W. Monckton: I am always grateful to the right hon. Gentleman when he informs me of things about which I am inadequately informed. I will certainly take his advice and consult my colleagues.

Western Germany (Supply of Arms)

Mr. Shinwell: asked the Minister of Defence to state the policy of Her

Majesty's Government about the export of arms to Western Germany.

Sir W. Monckton: It is the policy of Her Majesty's Government to assist Western Germany, by the supply of military equipment and by other means, to raise, train and equip the forces which it has been agreed that she should contribute to the defence of the North Atlantic community.

Mr. Shinwell: I am glad that the right hon. and learned Gentleman has come off the perch which he occupied when I last put the Question to him, and has admitted that we are either sending arms to Germany or contemplate doing so. Would he now reply to the question which I originally put? Is it intended that Germany should pay for the arms, and that we should resolve the problem of the cost of British occupation troops in Germany before we export arms to her?

Sir W. Monckton: The reply to the first part of that supplementary question is that it is proposed that these supplies of arms should be upon a commercial basis and not by way of preferential treatment for Western Germany. As to the other part of the supplementary question, negotiations are still taking place, and I have nothing to add.

N.A.T.O.

Mr. G. Jeger: asked the Minister of Defence if he will obtain from the United Kingdom North Atlantic Treaty Organisation representative a statement of the length of compulsory national service in each of the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation countries.

Sir W. Monckton: Yes, Sir. As the Answer consists of a table, I will, with permission, circulate it in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Mr. Shinwell: Would the Minister include in the statement which he proposes to publish in the OFFICIAL REPORT the intentions of the West German Government as to the period of national service?

Sir W. Monckton: I do not think that I can do that at present, because I have already prepared the table, but if the right hon. Gentleman wants to know some facts about the matter I will certainly do my best to inform him.

Following is the Answer:

PERIOD OF COMPULSORY MILITARY SERVICE IN N.A.T.O. COUNTRIES (1)

(As at May, 1956)

Country 
Initial (Active) Service
Reserve Service


Statutory period
Effective period
Statutory and effective period


(a)
(b)
(c)
(d)



Months
Months
Years


BELGIUM






Max.24





Min.12
18
13½(2)


All services
—
—
—


CANADA
No compulsory military service


DENMARK





Navy
12(3)
15
28½(5)


Army
16(4)


AirForce
16


FRANCE





All services
18
18
26½(6)


GERMANY…
No compulsory military service


GREECE





Navy
24
27–30(7)
27(8)


Army…
20–24


AirForce
24


ICELAND
No compulsory military service


ITALY





Navy
28
23–24
22½(9)


Army…
18
18


AirForce
18


LUXEMBOURG





Army only
12
12
25


NETHERLANDS





Navy
24
21
13½(11)


Army…
18(10)


AirForce
21


NORWAY
Not prescribed by law(12)

22½(13)


Navy

18


Army

16


Air Force

18


PORTUGAL





Navy
48
48
18(14)


Army
24
18(15)
23½(I6)


Air Force
36
36
19


TURKEY





Navy
36
36
22


Army…
24
24
24


Air Force




U.K.





All services
24
24
3½(17)


U.S.A.(18)





Army only
24
24
6 or 4(19)



NOTES:

(1) The information given relates to conscripts below N.C.O. rank. (In many countries conscript and reserve officers, N.C.O.s and technicians are liable to serve for longer periods with both the active and reserve forces).
(2) Total legal liability for compulsory military service and reserve service is 15 years counted from 1st January of the year that designates the class in which the national serviceman is included.
(3) The period prescribed by law is 12 months. This can be increased in special circumstances.
(4) 16 months except for Transportation Corps which still has 12 months. From autumn, 1956, the Transportation Corps will also have 16 months.
(5) All conscripts are liable to be recalled for military service until the age of 50.
(6) Divided as to "on call"—3 years; 1st Reserve-16 years; 2nd Reserve—7½ years.
(7) Seamen serve for 27 months, the rest for 30 months.
(8) The liability to serve extends from age 21 to 50.
(9) Total legal liability for compulsory military service (active and reserve service) is from age 21 to 45. Reservists in Navy are recallable to Army after age 39.
(10) The initial service is 20 months but conscripts are sent on "short leave" for the last two months. A conscript on "short leave" can be recalled at any moment.
(11) Legal liability to recall extends to age 35.
(12) Determined by Parliament, but not in form of law.
(13) Legal liability for reserve service extends to age 44. In the Army, reservists are thereafter until the age of 55 years included in the "war reserve" or are compelled to serve with the National Guard.
(14) Total period of compulsory military service in the Navy (active and reserve service) is from age 20 or 21 to 42. Reservists are then transferred to Army Reserve.
(15) A relatively small number of Army conscripts are sent on leave after an initial period of 6 months' service.
(16) Total legal liability for compulsory military service (active and reserve) extends from age 20 to 45. The period is as follows: Immediate recall—6 years, First line—12 years, Second line—5 years.
(17) In addition, men called up before 31st December, 1953, remain statutorily liable on completion of their 5½ years' National Service liability, to recall as reservists up to 30th June, 1959, but are not required to carry out training during the latter period of reserve liability.
(18) Induction is on a selective basis: at present men are being conscripted only into the Army.
(19) Total period of liability for service (active and reserve) is 8 years for those inducted before 9th August, 1955. Those inducted after that date have a total liability of only 6 years.

Air Trooping

Mr. de Freitas: asked the Minister of Defence whether he will cause the Service Departments to examine their arrangements for trooping Service families to see whether the air trooping can be concentrated into certain months so that the Air Ministry may consider some scheme by which modern passenger aircraft can be used by them for trooping in the months in which the demand for passenger space on ordinary commercial routes is low, and these modern aircraft can be used by the nationalised air corporations, or by private operators, for ordinary passenger services in the months in which the demand for such space is high.

Sir W. Monckton: As my right hon. Friend the Secretary of State for Air explained in reply to the hon. Member on 30th May, the trooping programme is a continuous one throughout the year. and it would be neither desirable nor practicable to concentrate the air trooping of Service families into certain months.

Mr. de Freitas: As that will not be done, and no such investigation will be made, what will the Minister of Defence do so to arrange trooping that Service families are carried in the modern aircraft that they deserve? The Air Ministry's present policy is such that that will not happen.

Sir W. Monckton: I was dealing with the question whether we could make any contribution to this question by a spreadover, and I am satisfied that that would not be a practicable way of dealing with the problem. The House should be aware that invitations to tender for air trooping contracts lay down standards of safety, comfort, etc.. and I have no reason to think that they are not being complied with.

Defence Expenditure

Mr. Reeves: asked the Minister of Defence if he is aware that Britain spends 9 per cent. of the national product on defence compared with an average of 5 per cent. spent by other West European countries in the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation; and if Her Majesty's Government will now reduce defence expenditure to this lower average in view of the fact that the country's trade balance

would thereby be transformed and that the reduction would enable Income Tax to be halved.

Sir W. Monckton: I am aware that the percentage of gross national product spent on defence is considerably higher in the United Kingdom than in most other Western European countries in N.A.T.O. The United Kingdom's expenditure on defence cannot be settled solely by relation to the expenditure of other countries it must depend primarily on the commitments which its Armed Forces have to carry out.

Mr. Emrys Hughes: is the Minister aware that the Chancellor of the Exchequer recently told the foreign Press that if he could knock off £700 million of his defence expenditure he would solve the whole problem of our balance of payments? Does not the right hon. and learned Gentleman think that he could do something to help the Chancellor of the Exchequer in his economic dilemma?

Sir W. Monckton: I could hope to solve all my own economic dilemmas if I could get rid of a whole lot of commitments which I cannot escape.

SPECIAL OPERATIONS EXECUTIVE FILES (ACCESS)

Dame Irene Ward: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs, in view of the access to the files of the Special Operations Executive granted to the author of a book, details of which have been sent to him, on what date the files were closed to other writers and on what grounds.

The Joint Under-Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (Lord John Hope): Special Operations Executive files have at no time been generally available to authors in the sense which the hon. Lady implies. The grant of access on the occasion in November, 1947, to which she refers was subsequently considered to have been ill-advised in respect of precedent, and for reasons of security no further access has been or can be allowed.

Dame Irene Ward: I thank my hon. Friend for that information, but would it interest him to know that the files were closed in 1952, after the publication of the "Starr Affair"? Will he kindly


explain the relationship of the "Starr Affair" to the closing of the files, which would be of great interest to many people, because it has nothing to do with security at all, the book having gone through the usual security channels?

Lord John Hope: I have answered the hon. Lady's Question.

Oral Answers to Questions — UNITED NATIONS

Disarmament Sub-Committee (Verbatim Reports)

Mr. Beswick: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether, in view of the fact that the verbatim reports of previous sittings of the United Nations Disarmament Sub-Committee have been published and that a reading of those verbatim records has been essential to the proper understanding of the respective positions of the nations represented at these meetings, he will reconsider his decision not to publish the verbatim records of the most recent and important meetings.

Lord John Hope: No, Sir. The expenditure involved in publishing the verbatim records as a White Paper would not be justifiable. Copies of the verbatim records are available in the Library of the House. Copies are also available at the United Nations Information Centre it London.

Mr. Beswick: Is this not a curious economy to impose? Is it not a fact that in previous White Papers the position, as stated, has involved a certain amount of propaganda for the proposals put forward by the Western countries, and that it would be quite impossible to follow the proceedings completely unless the verbatim records had been read? In that case, would not the Foreign Office consider this to be a somewhat niggardly economy? For the proper appreciation of the subject could we not have the verbatim reports more widely circulated?

Lord John Hope: No. We think that this economy is worth making, and these records are available, as I have said.

Middle East (Security Council's Resolution)

Mr. A. Henderson: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he can now make a statement on the recent discussions of the Security Council

on the Secretary-General's Report on the Middle East.

Mr. Janner: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what progress has been made with regard to the Security Council's deliberations on the Secretary-General's Report on the Middle East.

The Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs (Mr. Selwyn Lloyd): I am glad to say that on 4th June, the Security Council unanimously adopted, with certain minor amendments, the draft Resolution submitted by the United Kingdom delegate. This was designed to follow up the Secretary-General's recent efforts to secure full implementation of the armistice agreements, to support General Burns in his task of supervising the cease-fire and to,call upon the parties to the armistice agreements to take steps to increase confidence in the area.

Mr. Henderson: The Secretary of State has not made any reference to the acceptance by the British representative of the proposal to delete the words referring to the need for a peaceful settlement on a mutually acceptable basis. Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman explain to the House why it was found necessary to accept that proposition? Will he make clear that, in spite of that deletion, it is the policy of Her Majesty's Government to take further steps in order to secure a peaceful settlement, and may we know what are those steps?

Mr. Lloyd: I am grateful to the right hon. and learned Gentleman for putting that Question. It is quite true that Her Majesty's representative did agree to delete a certain paragraph from the preamble. The main purpose of that was to get a unanimous Resolution, which he succeeded in getting. On this very controversial topic I think it of some importance that we should try to proceed with unanimity, if that be possible. Regarding the content of that paragraph, in the view of the Government it is a statement of the obvious. There will be no settlement unless it is mutually acceptable, and that is the reason why we agreed not to make an issue of it. I think that the mission of the Secretary-General was a success, and when this Resolution is considered it will be seen that it consolidates it and calls for certain things with regard to freedom of movement for the observers and


so on. If it is implemented, it will help us towards the next step, which will be the seeking of a settlement.

Mr. Janner: Does not the right hon. and learned Gentleman consider this a major amendment and not a minor amendment at all, and that it strikes at the very root of the situation prevailing in the Middle East? In the circumstances, is it not perfectly clear that the Arab agitation regarding the removal of these words is of such a nature as to indicate, not only that they are at war, but that they intend to continue to be at war and to do whatever they can to make effective the war against Israel? In those circumstances, does not the Minister think he should consult the other members of the Tripartite Declaration to see what is to be done?

Mr. Lloyd: I am sorry that the hon. Member has asked that question, and injected that matter. It is of tremendous importance that we should try to proceed on the highest common factor of agreement. The whole trouble with this problem is that it has been bedevilled by controversy. This Resolution is a measure of agreement which is a step forward. It is a consolidation of the Report of the Secretary-General, and I think that it was important to try to get unanimity.

Mr. Robens: Does not the right hon. and learned Gentleman feel that there are times when the price of unanimous agreement is too high, even at the United Nations? Was not the paragraph which the British delegate withdrew, and which said,
Conscious of the need to create conditions in which a peaceful settlement on a mutually acceptable basis of the dispute between the parties can be made
very important? Is it not the case that the Syrian delegate indicated that there could be no question of mutual agreement which satisfied the State of Israel? Does he not feel that it would have been very much better for the British Government to have stuck to their guns and tested the United Nations on this particular qualification?

Mr. Lloyd: The right hon. Gentleman began by asking whether I felt that on occasions to give up something was too high a price to pay for unanimity. This

paragraph was a statement of the obvious. There will be no settlement in fact—whether this is obvious or not to certain Governments—unless it is mutually acceptable. Certain Governments sought to make an issue of prestige of this Clause in the Preamble, and read into it the meaning that in some way it affected previous resolutions of the United Nations. They put a gloss upon it, which in my view it was not right to put. In all the circumstances, I think that it was right to try to get unanimity on the rest of the Resolution.

Mr. Henderson: Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman make this point clear? Is it the policy of Her Majesty's Government to take further action, together with other Governments, to secure a peaceful settlement as soon as possible?

Mr. Lloyd: Indeed it is, and the first step was the mission of the Secretary-General. The second step, we hope, will be what will flow from the Resolution. We shall continue trying to create conditions in which a settlement will be possible.

Mr. Gaitskell: Does the Foreign Secretary recall that, in answering a Question on this Resolution last week, he spoke of further progress which he thought could be detailed, so he implied, in the Resolution? Is it not plain that in fact it was the proposal, this paragraph 6 referring to the need to create conditions for a peaceful settlement, which the right hon. and learned Gentleman had in mind when he was speaking of further progress? How can he describe the omission of the paragraph as a minor Amendment? Is it not also perfectly clear that the reason it was dropped was the strong opposition of the Arab States, who are not members of the Security Council, which was unfortunately supported by Soviet Russia, although the words of the paragraph were the very words used in the communiqué after the visit of Mr. Bulganin and Mr. Khrushchev?

Mr. Lloyd: Whether this was a minor Amendment or not, the fact is that certain countries put a gloss upon these words, a gloss which I do not think the words expressly deserve. So far as the position of the Security Council is concerned, it was the representative of Iran—which is a member of the Security


Council—who moved the Amendment to delete these words. We adhere to the position that it is necessary to have a settlement on a mutually acceptable basis That is the opinion of the Soviet Government, so far as we know, and as it was stated in the London communiqué. We adhere to that position. I still maintain, in view of all the controversy which has bedevilled this matter, that it was right for us, because there is a good deal of practical work which can be done following upon this Resolution, to get that unanimity.

Economic Development

Mr. A. Henderson: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether he will instruct his representative at the United Nations to support the proposal of the French Government for the establishment of a United Nations Fund for Economic Development.

Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: The right hon. and learned Member is presumably referring to the French proposal made in the North Atlantic Council for a World Economic Development Agency. This proposal is under consideration by us and our North Atlantic Treaty Organisation Allies.

Mr. A. Henderson: Will Her Majesty's Government give sympathetic consideration to this proposal? Would the right hon. and learned Gentleman not agree that international agreement providing for cuts in all defence budgets would serve two purposes: first, it would make a contribution to the solution of the disarmament problem and—[HON. MEMBERS: "Speech."]—second, it would enable the United Nations to start the work of developing the undeveloped countries? May I ask—[HON. MEMBERS: "Speech."]—I try to keep my questions as short as possible—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] Mr. Speaker, is it not possible to protect hon. Members from the interruptions from the other side of the House?

Mr. Speaker: I do not think that the right hon. and learned Gentleman has too much of which to complain. Will the Foreign Secretary answer the Question as far as it has been asked?

Mr. Lloyd: The right hon. and learned Gentleman will be aware that we have in principle supported the establishment of

a United Nations Development Fund. Of course, a practical difficulty is where the money will come from for the development to take place, or for the fund to be put into being. It must definitely have some relationship with disarmament, but I am not aware that in fact that relationship is specified in Mr. Pineau's plan.

GIBRALTAR (SPANISH RESTRICTIONS)

Mr. Dodds: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what further representations have been made to Spain in respect of that country's unfriendly attitude to Gibraltar; and what indication of improvement in this connection has been noted.

Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: Except that it is now possible for foreign residents in Spain to travel to Gibraltar and back via Algeciras there has been no change in the Spanish Government's policy towards Gibraltar since the hon. Member raised this question in the House on 15th February.

Mr. Dodds: Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman explain why, for so long, the Government have been so ineffective in looking after the interests of an intensely loyal part of the Commonwealth? Since the Micawber-like policy of the Government has completely failed in this respect, cannot we now have some action which will give hope to our friends and show the rest of the world that it pays to be in the British Commonwealth?

Mr. Lloyd: I think that a number of these restrictions are very petty. We have steadily sought an alleviation, and in one or two respects there has been an alleviation. We shall continue to try to get more.

Mr. Fell: Does not my right hon. and learned Friend think that it is conceivably possible that the extraordinary and unfriendly attitude of the Opposition, and the partially unfriendly attitude of the Government, towards Spain has had some effect upon the unfriendly attitude of Spain toward Gibraltar?

Mr. Lloyd: I shall speak only for the Government. It has been our policy to


try to improve relations with Spain, and that has been achieved to a considerable extent. I would hope that the Spanish Government realise that one of the obstacles to an improvement in those relations are the petty restrictions affecting Gibraltar.

Mr. K. Robinson: In view of the fact that Spain's economic existence depends almost entirely upon American dollars, would the Minister consider approaching the United States Government, at least informally, and asking them to associate themselves with our representations to Spain in this matter?

Mr. Lloyd: I really do not think that that would have much effect upon the Spanish Government.

GERMANY (CAPTURED DOCUMENTS)

Mr. Hale: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs whether, before returning to the Bonn Government the original captured German archives relating to the outbreak of the last war, he will arrange for copies and microfilms to be made available to the principal British libraries.

Lord John Hope: The principal documents of the German Ministry of Foreign Affairs relating to the period in question have already been published both in the original and in English translation by Her Majesty's Government, together with the United States and French Governments. Copies of the volumes in question are available for purchase by libraries. Photostats or microfilms of the documents have been or will be placed in the Public Record Office, where they will be generally available.

Mr. Hale: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that I am obliged to him for that Answer? Is he aware that these documents are of great historical importance? In particular, is he aware that those documents, which show the then Conservative Prime Minister and his emissaries, in the summer of 1939, dismissing the right hon. Member for Woodford (Sir W. Churchill) as of no political importance; offering Hitler a condominium in Africa—[HON. MEMBERS: "Speech."]—and asking the assistance of Hitler—[HON. MEMBERS: "Speech."]—in "dishing" the Labour

Party at a snap General Election, are of political and psychological importance?

Mr. Speaker: I think that goes rather beyond the Question on the Order Paper.

Dame Irene Ward: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he will give an assurance that any documents handed over to the Federal German Government will be microfilmed for preservation in this country.

Lord John Hope: Arrangements have been made for all the principal German documents held by Her Majesty's Government to be microfilmed before return to the Federal Government.

ATOMIC TESTS

31. Mr. Hale: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what representations he has received from the Japanese Government with reference to the fall of atomic rain following the recent British atomic bomb detonations; and what reply he has sent with reference to the matter.

Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: I have received no such representations.

Mr. Hale: Whether or not the right hon. and learned Gentleman has received representations, does not he know that it was announced by the B.B.C. that this had happened; and that there is a school of scientists who believe that these experiments are a menace to the foundation of human life on the whole planet? Will the right hon. and learned Gentleman look into the matter as one of the most important things happening today?

Mr. Lloyd: The hon. Gentleman asked me what representations I had received from the Japanese Government with regard to this matter. The answer is, "None," and therefore no reply has been sent.

EXPORTS (EMBARGO LIST)

32. Mr. Collins: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he will publish in the OFFICIAL REPORT a list of those goods, the export of which from this country is at present prohibited on strategic grounds, which are now being dealt with under the exceptional procedure by member States of the coordinating committee, and which have been reported to that committee.

Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: No, Sir. The details of exports dealt with under the exceptions procedure of the Consultative Group are confidential.

Mr. Collins: Assuming that there are good reasons for non-publication, will the right hon. and learned Gentleman follow up the wise decision recently made with regard to trade with China by making it possible for British manufacturers to export those goods now on the strategic list and which are included in the recent Franco-Soviet trade agreement?

Mr. Lloyd: The question of the Franco-Soviet trade agreement is another matter. I do not know of any difficulties, but if any firm is in difficulty it should communicate with the Board of Trade, and I think it will get the necessary information.

CYPRUS

Mr. Healey: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what official representations he has received from the United States Secretary of State concerning a solution through the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation of the Cyprus problem.

Mr. Donnelly: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he will make a statement on the nature of the official representations made to him by the United States Government regarding the effect of the Cyprus situation on the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation.

Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: No such representations have been received.

Mr. Healey: In view of the fact that the American Secretary of State has publicly suggested recently that N.A.T.O. should be used to deal with the Cyprus problem; that on Saturday the British Prime Minister admitted, at last, that Cyprus is an international and not purely a national question; and that all the N.A.T.O. countries have the same interest as Great Britain in safeguarding the supplies of Middle East oil; will not the Foreign Secretary consider using N.A.T.O. to solve this tragic problem which at present threatens to wreck the whole of the N.A.T.O. activities in the eastern Mediterranean?

Mr. Lloyd: If the hon. Gentleman reads again what was said by the American Secretary of State he will find that Mr. Dulles made it clear that he was dealing with a hypothetical situation, and that his remarks did not apply to the present situation. No useful purpose would be served by referring the present situation to N.A.T.O. at the moment.

Mr. Donnelly: Is the right hon. and learned Gentleman saying that no discussions of any kind about Cyprus have taken place within the framework of N.A.T.O.?

Mr. Lloyd: The Question deals with what official representations have been received from the United States Secretary of State.

Mr. Robens: In view of the fact that the Prime Minister recently said that the question of Cyprus was the question of Middle East oil, and in view of the fact that the Americans are as intensely interested in the Middle East oil as we are, is it not right and proper that the N.A.T.O. organisation should be used among the Allies to deal with the question of Cyprus?

Mr. Lloyd: The matter to consider is how best we may get results. My own view is that at present it would be a mistake and not an advantage to refer the matter to N.A.T.O.

Mr. Healey: On a point of order. When I tabled my Question I did not include the word "official" before the word "representations". That word was inserted by the Table Office, and I was given the explanation that it was necessary. I see that in Question No. 31 the word "official" was not inserted before the word "representations". Am I to understand that there is some political difference between the representations made in the first case and in the second?

Mr. Speaker: That question rather beats me at the moment. A Question must relate to a Minister's responsibility, and it may be that in the second Question official representations are necessary to put that responsibility on the Minister. But I must confess that I should need to study this point a little longer to see what the answer is.

Mr. Healey: May it not also be that the Foreign Office has received unofficial representations, but does not want to admit it?

Mr. Speaker: I think I was correct in what I said. Before a Minister becomes responsible for answering about representations from another Government, they must be official representations, and not merely representations from someone. In the one case the reference is to the Japanese Government, and that implies that the representations are official, because they come from the Government. In the way in which the hon. Member has worded his Question it says the representations come from the United States Secretary of State, and they may not necessarily be the views of the United States Government as a whole.

Mr. Lloyd: May I relieve the minds of hon. Members by saying that I have received neither official nor unofficial representations from the American Secretary of State.

N.A.T.O. (CENTRAL ORGANISATION)

Mr. G. Jeger: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs if he will ascertain from the United Kingdom North Atlantic Treaty Organisation representative the financial contributions being made to the North Atlantic Treaty Organisation's Central Organisation by each of the member countries, showing the actual and the per capita amounts.

Lord John Hope: National contributions to the various North Atlantic Treaty Organisation budgets are fixed by agreement among all the member countries. They are, however, confidential, and each country retains authority for the publication of its own figures.

Mr. Jeger: Is the hon. Gentleman aware that in a recent statement from the Turkish Embassy it was alleged that the Turkish contribution was far in excess of the Greek Government's contribution? Is there any foundation for that statement?

Lord John Hope: I must stand by the Answer which I have given. I do not know about anybody else's statements about anybody else.

FOREIGN SERVICE (MARRIED WOMEN)

Mr. Benn: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs why women serving in the Foreign Service are dismissed on the occasion of marriage; and if he will bring the practice of his Department into line with other branches of the Civil Service in this respect.

Lord John Hope: There is no question of dismissal. The Foreign Service differs from the home Civil Service in that it normally imposes on its members an obligation to serve abroad at any time. There are obvious difficulties in the way of the fulfilment of this obligation by married women. My right hon. and learned Friend therefore has the power to require the resignation of women foreign servants on marriage, though he may in special circumstances permit them to continue in the Service. This procedure enables my right hon. and learned Friend to consider each case on its merits, and he sees no reason to change it.

Mr. Benn: If foreign service conflicts with married life, surely it should be for the person concerned to decide to resign, or to reach the decision when the foreign posting comes. Is it not rather unjust that the Foreign Service should pursue a policy in this regard different from that in any other Department? Moreover, would not a somewhat more practical and intelligent policy emerge if the staff included married women?

Lord John Hope: I cannot help thinking that when the hon. Member reads my original Answer, he will realise that his supplementary question is not fair or relevant.

Mr. Shinwell: In view of what has happened in recent years at the Foreign Office, would it not be advisable to retain the women and dismiss the men?

GREECE (RETURNED BRITISH DECORATIONS)

Mr. Donnelly: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what British decorations to Greek citizens have been handed back to Her Majesty's representative in Athens; and what reasons were given to Her Majesty's representative.

Lord John Hope: Eight distinctions awarded to Greek subjects in recognition of their war-time services have been returned to Her Majesty's representative in Athens during the past two years as a form of protest against British policy in Cyprus.

Mr. Donnelly: Is the Joint Under-Secretary aware that this is a very saddening situation for this country? Even supposing that law and order is restored in Cyprus under the present policy of the British Government, what is his policy in future for Anglo-Greek relations?

Lord John Hope: That question is very different from the one on the Order Paper.

Mr. Speaker: It is a much larger question than that of decorations.

Mr. Donnelly: The whole question of handing back these decorations, including one from a Foreign Minister of Greece—

Mr. Speaker: Order. The hon. Member asked about decorations and then asked in his supplementary question about future policy on Anglo-Greek relations. I do not see that that hangs on a Question about decorations.

CHINA (RELATIONS WITH HONG KONG)

Mr. Younger: asked the Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs what request he has received from the Government of the People's Republic of China for the establishment of relations with the Government of Hong Kong; and what answer has been returned.

Mr. Selwyn Lloyd: On 25th February the Chinese Government informed Her Majesty's Chargé d'Affaires in Peking that they would like to establish in Hong Kong an office of a Commissioner of Foreign Affairs of the People's Republic of China with diplomatic and other staff. This proposal raises a number of issues which are still under consideration.

Mr. Younger: Is the Foreign Secretary aware that in a recent public statement Mr. Chou En-lai said that this was one of a number of matters which made an improvement in relations between the two countries difficult? Since this request

apparently came in February, is it not about time that Her Majesty's Government made up their mind about what seems to be a quite normal proposal between States which recognise each other diplomatically?

Mr. Lloyd: I think that upon reflection the right hon. Member will realise that this question does raise a number of points. I do not think that real complaint can be taken about the time which we have so far taken to consider the matter. After all, it was about four years after the Labour Government recognised them that the Chinese Government decided to send a chargé d'affaires to London. These matters want consideration, and we will consider them.

CYPRUS (TELEGRAMS)

Mr. F. M. Bennett: asked the Secretary of State for the Colonies whether he will now publish the text of telegrams passing between the United Kingdom Government and the Government of Greece on the subject of Cyprus during 1951.

The Secretary of State for the Colonies (Mr. Alan Lennox-Boyd): I have nothing to add to what I said in the debate on 14th May.

Mr. Bennett: As during that debate my right hon. Friend the Colonial Secretary made it perfectly plain that Her Majesty's Government had no objection to publishing those documents, and as also in the course of that debate the right hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Bevan), speaking presumably for the Opposition, pressed very strongly for the publication of the documents, what possible reason can there be for withholding publication of documents already available to the Greek public?

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: I am not withholding any information. I think that in these matters the initiative would lie with the ex-Ministers concerned.

Mr. J. Griffiths: May I assure Government supporters that my right hon. Friends and myself who were in the Labour Government in 1951 and in the previous Labour Government would have no objection to the publication of those documents, provided that all the relevant documents are published? May I ask


the right hon. Gentleman whether he and his colleagues in Her Majesty's Government would also be prepared to lay on the Table documents relating to the handling of Cyprus by Her Majesty's present Government and the previous Conservative Administration, and in particular the documents relating to all the considerations, including party considerations, which led to the timing of the Hopkinson statement which precipitated the present Cyprus crisis?

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: If every telegram and document relating to the conduct of Cypriot affairs over a great many years were to be laid before Parliament it would certainly occupy a great deal of the attention—[HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."]—the time and the attention of this House. I did not quote from any document, but I made reference to certain documents which hon. and right hon. Gentlemen, or some of them, felt might have been regarded as a reflection on the right hon. Gentlemen concerned. If I am to assume that the right hon. Gentleman for Llanelly (Mr. J. Griffiths) is taking up the suggestion that I made, I will confer with him and show him the telegram concerned.

Mr. Griffiths: Does that offer include the laying of the documents relating to the handling of Cyprus by the present Government and the previous Conservative Government as well?

Mr. Smithers: Is my right hon. Friend aware that if anything precipitated the present crisis it was not the so-called "Hopkinson statement" but the deliberate misinterpretations placed upon it by the Opposition?

Mr. Bevan: It is within the recollection of the House that exception was taken to the right hon. Gentleman introducing, at the end of the debate, what sounded more like direct quotations than references to documents. It is not enough for the right hon. Gentleman to say that he will consult ex-Ministers. It is a question whether the Standing Orders of the House were invoked. They come into operation automatically, and do not have to rely upon

the intervention of ex-Ministers or Ministers.

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: I think it is also within the recollection of the House—if I may repeat what I said then—that I did not quote from any document. My offer to consult ex-Ministers concerned—the right hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Bevan) was then, I think, outside the Government of the day—is strictly in accordance with precedents in matters of this kind.

Viscount Hinchingbrooke: Are not these mutual recriminations between political parties absolutely futile in face of the grave responsibilities confronting British troops in Cyprus?

Mr. Griffiths: May I ask the right hon. Gentleman whether it is not true that these recriminations were not begun on this side of the House? [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] May I further ask him whether it is not true that he has on more than one occasion publicly acknowledged the restraint shown by the Opposition in regard to Cyprus?

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: I am perfectly prepared to repeat what I said. Since these recent developments in Cyprus have taken place there has on many occasions been restraint. The purpose of my reference to the Opposition when they were the Government of the day was to show how extraordinarily difficult these matters are, and how people's approaches differ, according to whether they have responsibility or not.

Several Hon. Members: rose—

Mr. Speaker: I had now better invoke the Standing Orders myself about the time allowed for Questions.

BUSINESS OF THE HOUSE

Ordered,

That this day Business other than the Business of Supply may be taken before Ten o'clock.—[Mr. R. A. Butler.]

Orders of the Day — SUPPLY

[14TH ALLOTTED DAY]

Considered in Committee.

[Sir CHARLES MACANDREW in the Chair]

CIVIL ESTIMATES AND ESTIMATES FOR REVENUE DEPARTMENTS, AND ARMY ESTIMATES, 1956–57

Motion made, and Question proposed,

That a further sum not exceeding £40, be granted to Her Majesty, towards defraying the charges for the year ending on 31st March, 1957, for the following services connected with the Situation in Kenya, namely:

Civil Estimates, 1956–57, and Army Estimates, 1956–57



£


Class II, Vote 8, Colonial Office
10


Class II, Vote 9, Colonial Services
10


Class II, Vote 10, Development and Welfare (Colonies, &amp;c.)
10


Army Estimates, Vote 3, War Office
10


Total
£40

Orders of the Day — KENYA (SITUATION)

3.35 p.m.

Mr. Arthur Creech Jones: Some months have passed since there was a full discussion of Kenya affairs either in the House itself or in Committee of the whole House. We direct attention to Kenya problems this afternoon because we are conscious of great public anxiety about many affairs relating to that Colony and because the House of Commons has a very real and direct responsibility for many affairs in that territory.
There is no desire on our part to embarrass the liberal elements in Kenya today nor to attempt to score cheap party political points. We discharge our duty as an Opposition in directing attention to the difficulties that exist in the territory and in probing the Government in the hope that changes may take place or that further information about those affairs may be forthcoming.
It is unfortunate that in so short a time we cannot range over the whole field of Kenya policy. Perhaps it is unfortunate that some of the fundamental issues in East Africa, and particularly in Kenya, cannot be dealt with because we have not yet had the promised debate on the

Report of the Royal Commission on East African Affairs. That was a very important and provocative document. We are aware, of course, that the Government have been obtaining the views of the three East African Governments and have also promised a White Paper summarising their own views on the recommendations of the Royal Commission's Report. None the less it is most unfortunate that a year has passed since the publication of this Report and that we have not been able to discuss its recommendations yet. We are aware that certain of the proposals are receiving the active attention of some of the Governments in East Africa. We can only hope that matters will not go too far before we have an opportunity of expressing our views on some of the recommendations of the Report.
In the course of my remarks I shall fasten on some of the difficulties and problems confronting Kenya at present. I would point out that I am aware, as is the Opposition, of the difficulties which have confronted the Kenya Government over the past few years. The Opposition and the rest of the Committee are relieved at the ending of the Mau Mau insurrection and are fully appreciative of the courage and endurance which has been shown by the inhabitants of all communities in Kenya since 1952.
We are aware that if the picture is to be looked at as a whole it is desirable that we should see some of the good work which is going forward at present. There are big projects of development and the creation of new services which undoubtedly will do a great deal for the Africans in the territory. The Mombassa water scheme, the Swynerton agriculture plan, the African land settlement proposals, including a great deal of work done in the conservation of land and consolidation of lands inside some of the reserves—all that is work of great promise which we regard as of very great importance. It is work which will give lasting benefit to the African population as well as to the other communities.
This afternoon, I want to direct attention to certain political aspects in Kenya today and to ask a number of important questions relating to future political progress. I think I should first make it clear that it is unnecessary to discuss the


causes of the Mau Mau insurrection, because they have received the attention of the House on a number of occasions in the last year or so, but it is important that we should grasp what are the political concessions which have been made since the emergency was declared. Those advances in the political field have been accompanied by a great deal of indiscriminate repression. All of us have reservations about what has happened in connection with certain of the work and detention camps. Although it must be admitted that a big proportion, even of the Kikuyu tribe, has remained loyal in allegiance to the Kenya Government, there has been a belated admission of the right of Africans to share in the government of Kenya.
There have been concessions recognising the rights of Africans for direct representation in the Legislative Council. Efforts have also been made to find a suitable basis for the African franchise, about which I shall say something more in a moment. At the same time, a prohibition has been imposed on Colonywide political organisation among the Africans, an act of discrimination which undoubtedly the Government justify because the trouble which has occurred had its origin in the Kikuyu. Restrictions have also been imposed on the political rights of the Kikuyu in some of the advances which are now promised.
It must be said that not only does direct representation of Africans in the Legislative Council marks some real political progress, but also that the granting of suffrage, individual voting rights, individual franchise, to the great majority of Africans is of great importance. Undoubtedly, the majority of Africans will be able to vote at the next General Election. Probably 60 per cent. to 70 per cent. of the African population will have qualifications to vote in that Election, but I think we should make it clear that we have very strong reservations about the basis of the franchise. To build up a fancy franchise, a system peculiar to the Africans alone, and the incorporation of new principles in determining the basis of the franchise, together with the introduction of a very complicated system with an undemocratic procedure, is, in my judgment, somewhat illiberal and unnecessary in all the circumstances.
It gives an African up to three votes as a maximum, according to the qualifications of the Africans. This introduction of qualifications seems to us on this side of the Committee to be essentially undemocratic. It is contrary to the whole principle of democracy as we understand it. With the adoption of this system, following the recommendations of the Counts Report—a system which, I ought to say, was not suggested by the Africans, but was suggested to the Africans, although finally endorsed by them—one can only hope it will be treated as an intermediate step and as a basis for a move towards the establishment of the common vote.
It is clear that after the events in Kenya in the last year or so a generous gesture on the part of the other communities is called for, in all the circumstances. It seems desirable that, if confidence and good will are to be restored, an effort should be made to bring together the leaders of the political parties for the purpose of working out a political development plan over the next few years. It is not sufficient to say that there is a suitable arrangement and that nothing should be done to alter existing arrangements until 1960. If the leaders of the respective sides, the respective communities, are willing to discuss political changes, then changes can be discussed. One would hope that the Government would take the initiative in bringing the respective leaders together to discuss some future political development plan.
I suggest that the representation of Africans in the Legislative Council should be increased and increased at an early date. I gather that there are many elements in Kenya today who would welcome the enlargement of African representation. There are 5½ million Africans in Kenya as against 50,000 Europeans, yet in the Legislative Council only one seat is awarded on the basis of I million Africans and a seat may go to the Europeans on the basis of only 3,500. That terrific disparity, that tremendous inequality, is something which cannot be defended now.
It seems to me that the case for increased representation is overwhelming at present, particularly since there has been so much regret on the part of those who have hitherto stood in the way of African advance at the failure of many Africans to realise their responsibilities


towards the Government in their own territories. It is important that this concession should be made, and it is long overdue.
I had hoped that the Government would take the initiative towards making a start with a common franchise, with geographical constituencies. Undoubtedly, it would have to be on a restricted scale at first and would provide for the safeguarding of certain of the minority communities. If we are to ask the people of Kenya to think in terms of Kenya, and not merely in terms of their individual communities, they must be brought together not only to work together, but also to vote together and not as communities. They must vote and work as members of the Kenya Colony. Accordingly, the time is ripe when a common register might be instituted and a start made in that respect.
It seems extraordinarily unfair that we should not make some changes in the compromise introduced, at a time of great difficulty, I admit, by the Secretary of State's predecessor, about the balanced communities in the Government of Kenya. To concede to the Africans only one Minister out of six, to concede two Ministers to the Indians and three to the Europeans, seems to be grossly unfair. By agreement, it might be possible, as many of the liberal elements in Kenya desire, to adjust the Ministries in such a way as to permit two Africans, two Indians and four Europeans, giving equality between Europeans and non-Europeans in the Ministries.
There is another political difficulty where the present system needs some modification in its operation. At the moment, the basis of political organisation for the Africans may not be Territory-wide. If the Africans organise politically at all, they must do so only on the basis of a district or of their tribe. It seems to most of us who have watched this scene over many years that the sooner we can get Africans to think in terms of Kenya as a whole and the community as a whole, the better, and that to insist that political organisations must be based only on the tribe or on the district merely fortifies those regrettable communal tendencies which have been so evident in Kenya since the beginning of its history. A

great effort made in Nairobi was stultified on this ground.
This kind of thing can only intensify the resentment of Africans, especially when the fullest freedom is permitted to Europeans and Indians in the forms which their political organisation may take, whereas this freedom is denied to Africans, despite the fact that only a comparatively small minority of Africans have been concerned in the Mau Mau troubles. I therefore deplore the restriction which exists on African political rights.
Of course, there are tribes—the Kikuyu, the Meru and the Embu—who are denied the normal political rights of assembly and of political association. Although many members of these tribes have remained loyal to Britain and their Government, they are not permitted the normal exercise of political freedom. The situation in the past has been dangerous in certain parts of the country, but it seems that the people who most require political experience, among whom it is most desirable that political maturity should grow, who feel that they ought to have greater political expression than they have had in the past and among whom a political awakening is taking place, are the very people specifically excluded from the exercise of political rights in the changes recently contemplated.
Do not let us forget that the Africans are the great majority of the population and have a deep and abiding stake in the life of the country. Facilities should, therefore, be created whereby they can play their part and express themselves in the political life of the country and gain the necessary experience in order that their responsibility may grow.
I submit that, after what has passed in Kenya, the time is ripe for further political advances, but I would add that it seems necessary that those political advances should be accompanied by agricultural and economic changes. It is no good handling political problems in a watertight compartment; they are part of a general problem in Kenya—the malaise which has come over the African population. An attempt ought to be made without delay to deal with some of the special problems of resettlement, some of the problems of land tenure, the question of village settlement and even the very


acute and difficult problem which exists in the European Highlands of the resident labour system. That system ought to be brought to a speedy end.
Likewise, there remains the discrimination against the Africans in regard to access to land in the Highlands which has been administratively shaped for the European community. The Royal Commission on East Africa recommended that race discrimination with regard to the European Highlands should now be modified and that Africans of competent farming qualities should be admitted to the farming or holding of land in this vast area. It does not call for special legislation. It can be done by administrative order; indeed, it is by administrative order that this land has been exclusively partitioned on behalf of the Europeans.
The time has long been ripe for this change, because no other Measure by the Kenya Government has created so much feeling and added so deeply to the bitterness and the resentment of the Africans as this disqualification from holding land in areas where good land exists and which are important to the Africans because of their crowded reserves.

Mr. C. R. Hobson: With reference to the occupation of the White Highlands—and I am not departing from what my right hon. Friend has said— would my right hon. Friend restrict this to individual ownership by each of the races?

Mr. Creech Jones: I have always taken the view about land in any part of Kenya that it should be held by lease and should not be individually owned. At the same time, I think the leases should be of long duration.

Mr. Hobson: What about the fragmentation which may arise if there is no individual ownership?

Mr. Creech Jones: The question of fragmentation is dealt with in the Royal Commission's Report, and is a subject which should receive the attention of the House at a very early date. I do not intend now to be drawn into a discussion of the land problems of Kenya, the problem of land tenure or the problem of the consolidation of holdings. It is important for the economic development of Kenya that the whole system of land tenure should be overhauled.
I now pass to consideration of questions relating to law and order in Kenya. It is extraordinary that after three and a half years of the emergency there are still 46,000 persons in detention, that the release from the detention camps is still extremely slow, and that last year no fewer than 12,000 persons were brought into the camps.
These persons are detained without charge and not as the result of an order by a court. They are just swept up because some of them are suspected of disloyalty. Both innocent and guilty are in the camps, and the innocent, refusing to confess to any offence, are treated as if they were guilty of disloyalty and were subscribers to the Mau Mau oath. Surely, after three and a half years, a better method might have been evolved for screening people and discovering the disloyal or guilty and separating them from loyal subjects. Surely a method based on human rights and elementary justice might have been devised for dealing with disloyalty which has spread as a result of the Mau Mau trouble.
People have been swept up for detention willy-nilly. Innocent as well as disloyal have been held together for days, weeks and months, and large numbers of innocent people still remain in the camps. That kind of practice has entailed a great deal of hardship and distress for women and children. Children have been left without adequate protection when their mothers or fathers have been put into detention camps. Children have been swept up with the rest without the knowledge of their parents, causing their parents very great anxiety. Women and children have been returned to the reserves without adequate means of subsistence. All this is quite apart from the fact that many innocent persons have been detained in custody for very long periods and are still there.
I wish to draw attention to a further problem, to which some notice has been given in this House and to which some Press attention has been given, and that is the position of girl juveniles in the prison compounds for women in Kenya. The facts cannot be disputed, because they have been authenticated. I possess documentary evidence to support what I am about to say.
There has been no proper segregation of the girls who have been swept up, in


spite of the fact that they are juveniles, except where parents have been swept up with children. In the prison compounds the girls have mixed freely with criminal women. They have received no proper training, education or instruction. In some cases, they have been sentenced to solitary confinement for misdemeanours. It is a system which would not be defended by any hon. Member.
Over and above that, there are cases of appalling cruelty. Many of the girls are aged eleven or twelve, though some are younger and some older. A girl of eleven was sentenced to seven years' hard labour for taking an illegal oath. A girl of twelve was given a life sentence for consorting with people with arms. I am sure that no hon. Member dare for a moment justify such treatment of young persons. A very strict inquiry seems to be called for into the treatment of young persons and children. I will leave aside for the moment the problem of the children, about which my hon. Friend the Member for Eton and Slough (Mr. Fenner Brockway) will. I hope, if he catches your eye, Sir Charles, have something more to say.
To swell the population in the detention camps—there is no other obvious reason—women who have served their sentence for a crime are not given their freedom, but are transferred to detention. The majority of women who have served prison sentences are now in detention not as a result of an order by a court or a judicial inquiry into their cases, but merely at the instance of the person responsible for women prisoners.
In September, 1955, 227 women were detained in camps and works compounds out of 387 who had served short sentences in prison, and 45 were detained out of 58 who had served long sentences in prison. Why should these people not be given their freedom when they have served the sentences imposed upon them by the courts? Also, in the women's prisons men are employed as warders, which seems to be a very unsatisfactory state of affairs.
Carrying the problem a stage further, I would refer to the public anxiety which still exists about the administration of justice in Kenya. As we all know, strictures have from time to time been passed by judges or members of the bench about

the procedures adopted in Kenya during the past few years. Undoubtedly, reforms have been made. Nevertheless, I suggest that the Colonial Secretary did little to allay anxiety when he replied to charges brought by my hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mrs. Castle) some months ago.
They were charges which certainly reflected upon the administration of justice in Kenya because of the cruelty and barbarism practised upon innocent victims with official connivance, the disposition to give preferential treatment to Europeans compared with Africans and light handling of cases in the courts, and instances of the security forces falling short of the high standards that we expect in securing law and order in a community.
We have not yet had any adequate explanation of the resignation of Colonel Young from the important post which he occupied when he was in Kenya. I think it can be said that confusion still exists as to where the authority of the administration of the police lies. The police force still remains subject to the district officers and administrative officers who have final responsibility for good government and law and order. It is important that, as was recommended by the Kenya police inquiry, as quickly as possible the police force should be put on a somewhat similar basis to that of the police force in this country, and a measure of independence assured against the dominance of the Administration itself.
There is a further factor which is also causing anxiety, namely, the range of capital sentences on persons who are arrested on capital offences. No fewer than 1,015 persons have been executed up to the end of March this year. Of course, many of them have been guilty of the most revolting cruelty, but hundreds have been executed for being in possession of arms, for consorting, or for being present when a murder was committed, or for administering oaths. I plead with the Secretary of State that representation should be made to modify this vicious system of imposing the capital sentence for a whole variety of charges. I believe that the Chairman of the Kenya Committee of the Friends Services Council was right when he wrote in The Times the other day:
There is no question whatever but that grave injustices and oppression have arisen in


Kenya. Nor have they been excusable on the plea either of incompetence or the overwhelming pressure of events.
That view, whether we like it or not, is widely held.

The Secretary of State for the Colonies(Mr. Alan Lennox-Boyd): Will the right hon. Gentleman read the whole of that letter? It is important. That extract does not give the complete picture.

Mr. Creech Jones: I would not have quoted this sentence unless the sentence could stand on its own feet, by itself. The other parts of the letter relate to some matters which are quite distinct and apart from this. The Chairman of that Committee, before saying what he wishes to say about certain statements by Miss Fletcher, makes this preamble, that there is no question whatever that grave injustice and oppression have arisen in Kenya. Therefore, I am completely justified in quoting the sentence as it is. In view of what I have said, there seems to be urgent need for some inquiry into the whole procedure of administering justice in Kenya, and such inquiry should include the question of the absence of the jury system in the African courts.
As for the emergency procedures adopted since 1952, a commission or a committee should be sent from this country to inquire into such matters as the grounds on which detention orders are made, methods of screening, the system of appeals to the Advisory Committee, the treatment of internees in camps and in villages, and the proposals that those classed as very black should continue to be detained after the emergency is at an end. I urge that some such inquiry should be made along these lines, as well as an inquiry into criminal procedure with the further object of discovering whether a jury system can be brought into the ordinary procedure of the courts.
I now want to refer to trade unionism in Kenya and, first, to a recent incident in which the Government threatened to cancel the registration of the Kenya Federation of Labour. The Labour Department in Kenya has done very good work indeed on behalf of organised labour and has been extraordinarily helpful in its suggestions, and its officers have been very forthcoming in assisting the unions in the difficult task of organisation.
I appreciate the weaknesses of colonial trade unionism and the confusion which

often exists in the minds of trade unionists as to the objectives for which the unions are created. But undoubtedly, in this case, the Government were concerned with preventing the trade unions from becoming political organisations on a Kenya-wide front. They had prohibited the Colony-wide political organisation of Africans, and presumably they were anxious that the trade unions should not be organised in such a way as to take the place of the political organisation which could not now operate.
But I must say that it was an extraordinary request which was made to the Kenya Federation of Labour. It was suggested that they should exclude from their consideration, their propaganda and their work, subjects such as these embracing the extension of education, including technical education; they were required not to discuss the problems of immigration, political rights, social legislation and the economic structure of their own country. All these subjects were excluded from the consideration of the Kenya Federation of Labour.
I suggest how utterly ridiculous and stupid such a requirement was. How can it be expected that a federation can operate if it is proscribed in this way? How has it happened that people in Kenya remain so profoundly ignorant of the struggle of trade unionism in this country for its rights and its recognition? There is also—and this is almost as bad—the failure on the part of the authorities to have consultations with the federation or any of the unions before it takes action of the kind to which I have referred. Without consultation these new proposals ought never to have been imposed. By their nature they are both illiberal and unjustifiable.
I hope that with the intervention of Sir Vincent Tewson, the General Secretary of the Trades Union Congress, the air is now clear. I also hope that in future there will be proper consultation between the federation and the Government authorities, and proper recognition of the scope of trade union interests and action as well as of the importance of encouraging trade unionists to think in terms of their country instead of thinking only in terms of their tribe or district.
I must add a word about immigration policy. Here again, one is profoundly disturbed because it seems that the policy


may be directed towards the encouragement of immigration of one race and the discouragement of another. I suggest that it would be folly to bring in from outside people demanding exclusive privileges, who will make, by their presence, the solution of the social, economic and political problems of Kenya all the more difficult, or make more difficult the solution of the problem of the European Highlands by closer settlement of Europeans in that particular area.
It is quite true that more skills are required in Kenya in the professions, in trades, and in commerce. If these gaps are there, then it is all the more necessary that training should be speeded up and a bigger expansion of trade and technical education made possible. I admit that in Kenya, in recent years, very important advances in technical and trade education have taken place. But immigration, I submit, should be carefully regulated and selection of immigrants made in order to serve not merely the short-term needs of Kenya but also the long-term needs. In any case, it ought not to be just that type of immigrant who will intensify the racial struggle and make political and social development there all the more difficult in the days to come.

Mr. Frederic Harris: Is the right hon. Gentleman suggesting to the Committee that British people should be stopped from going to Kenya?

Mr. Creech Jones: I have never suggested that there should be any racial discrimination in the matter of immigration. The regulations for which I myself was responsible were not hinged on the question of racial discrimination.
I suggest—I think the Committee will agree—that there can be no final devolution of authority to the Kenya Government until a firm democratic basis of government is established in that territory. European opinion with very great respect to the Europeans—is still in Kenya assertive and sometimes rather aggressive. There is resentment and it is often cynical about the efforts of this country to have some voice in Kenya affairs.
I submit that we as a House of Commons have a very real responsibility towards political and social development

in Kenya. We must not capitulate before an active minority, as we did in the case of Central Africa when the Federation was founded. We cannot withdraw from our responsibilities until the foundations of a democratic society are well-laid, and all communities play their active part in the political life of the territory. Further, while it is important that the three East African territories should cooperate and be associated, none the less policy ought not to be directed towards the creation of a federation of these three territories. One is conscious that if that effort were made it would arouse the most bitter opposition of the Africans in Uganda and Kenya, as well as in Tanganyika.
I conclude by saying that our policy should be directed towards improving social standards in Kenya, spreading education there, stopping racial discrimination and bringing about the fullest co-operation and understanding of the four communities involved in the political and other fields of that country.

4.25 p.m.

The Minister of State for Colonial Affairs (Mr. John Hare): I have very great respect for the right hon. Member for Wakefield (Mr. Creech Jones). I go further. I say that the Colonial Territories owe him a great deal chiefly because, when he was Secretary of State for the Colonies, he refused to toe the party line. When I was sitting on the benches opposite, I formed the impression that he was a man who did what he thought best and defended his actions because they were right and just, and not merely because he sought to give pleasure to those who sat behind him. Therefore, I am sorry that today, perhaps, he did not always quite keep to his high standards. He spoke for something like 55 minutes and he had only five minutes of praise to give to the Administration which has overcome the hideous menace of Mau Mau. The remaining 45 or 50 minutes were spent in criticism.
I entirely sympathise with the right hon. Gentleman's regret that we have been unable this afternoon to discuss Kenya with the benefit of the reports from the various Territories and my right hon. Friend's comments on those reports dealing with the Royal Commission. I am able to announce to the House that these


despatches from the three Territories are now with the Colonial Office, and we hope to be able to publish a White Paper before the Recess with my right hon. Friend's comments. It may, therefore, be possible to arrange a debate on the Commission's Report by arrangements made through the usual channels.

Mr. James Griffiths: I take it that the right hon. Gentleman and the Government will recognise their responsibility here. This was a Royal Commission appointed by the Government to report to the Government and Parliament, and it is for the Government to find time for a debate.

Mr. Hare: The right hon. Gentleman knows better than I do that these are matters which are better arranged through the proper channels. My right hon. Friend and myself very much welcome the opportunity today to discuss the affairs of Kenya. As we have a certain amount of time at our disposal, I do not intend to limit myself to dealing only with the emergency because, too often, am afraid, those outside who read our discussions in this House on Kenya are left with the impression that the whole Colony is in a state of turmoil and all the energies of the Government of Kenya are being directed to the suppression of a violent revolt against its authority. I think that this impression is very unfair to the Kenya Government and to those many officers working outside the emergency areas who are energetically pursuing the task of the economic and social development of the people of the country. So the first point I would make is that the refusal in Kenya to abandon the constructive tasks of Government, even at the height of the emergency, is a feature of these recent troubled years to which far too little attention has been paid.
As the right hon. Gentleman has dealt with some part of the results of the emergency, may I first say a word about the emergency? The most striking thing about Kenya today is that while the emergency is not yet over, the end is at least in sight and militant Mau Mau is affecting the life of the Colony less and less. The latest estimate of terrorist strength is not much more than 1,000, compared with 1,750 only three months ago. There are now only five major leaders at large as against about fifty a year ago.
I think the House will agree with me that this success reflects the greatest credit upon the leadership and imagination of General Lathbury. He has ceaselessly adapted the use of military forces to the very rapidly changing nature of the campaign. This campaign, as the House knows, largely consists of special operations against limited and exceedingly elusive targets in very difficult country. In this context also I should like to pay tribute to those who had been and still are engaged in these hazardous operations. This year these have led to the award of three George Cross Medals.
However, with 1,000 terrorists still at large, and even though they now receive only negligible support from their own people, the emergency cannot yet be considered over. Pressure and vigilance must be maintained in order to remove as quickly as possible the remaining threat to the community, that community being African, Asian and European. I do not think I need remind the House that the vast majority of those who have suffered from the Mau Mau terrorist movement have been the Kikuyu themselves.
There have been allegations, both in this House and elsewhere, and the right hon. Gentleman has this afternoon made them, that the rule of law has broken down in Kenya. I cannot accept this, and I should like to give some of the reasons why. Nobody has ever denied that at the height of the emergency conditions in the troubled areas amounted to a state of civil war. Large armed gangs, often a hundred strong, roamed the countryside murdering and pillaging. In fact, the extent of the terror is only just being fully revealed as the bodies of the victims are discovered,
Some things undoubtedly occurred in the heat of battle and under the strain of the brutalising influences of the prevailing conditions, which were deplorable and inexcusable. There were, indeed, a few isolated cases of brutalities and atrocities on the part of the Government's Forces. But I do emphasise that, whereever possible, the offenders have been brought to justice, and it has been brought home repeatedly and forcibly to all concerned that abuses and malpractices will not be tolerated.

Mr. R. T. Paget: Surely. that is not so. We had a period during which they were not isolated


incidents. There was a competitive reign of terror, and an indemnity was passed to excuse all the people who had taken part in it. True, very admirable action has been taken since then, but until January there was a competitive reign of terror, and everybody was excused for what they had done in it.

Mr. Hare: I am saying that every action is now being taken to see that those incidents are not repeated. That is what I have said. I think what I said is well within the recollection of the House.
I repeat that we are taking rigorous steps to eliminate opportunities for such abuses by the strengthening of the system of supervision. Many hon. Members on both sides will know of this, and I think it is fair to quote as an example the inquiry conducted by Sir Vincent Glenday into screening camps. A copy of his report is in the Library of the House. But the vital principle has certainly not been abandoned that in the detection of crime and in the bringing of offenders to justice the police are responsible to the law and subject to the sole authority of the Attorney-General, who is himself independent of the Executive in this regard. This is a most important point, which many people do not appreciate.
Authoritative criticism, again voiced by the right hon. Gentleman this afternoon, has been expressed against the criminal procedure code in Kenya, under which members of the European community are entitled to trial by jury, a privilege not extended to other communities. It has been suggested that if the jury system is to be retained in Kenya there should be a change to multi-racial juries in cases from all communities heard by judges.
This is not an easy question, and it requires the most careful study before any changes are decided upon. Again, I think the House would like to know that a comprehensive study of the criminal code has been initiated in Kenya, and is being pursued as fast as other pressing demands upon the law officers there permit. Until these local studies have been completed, I am not prepared to state a view on the future of the jury system in Kenya.
The right hon. Gentleman talked about rehabilitation. As the House knows, as detainees respond to rehabilitation they

are released either to restricted residence in their own villages or to an open camp on one of the new development schemes. This method of rehabilitation has proved very successful, and no evidence has come to light of any released detainee rejoining the gangs. The detention camps and works camps have been laid out on the advice of the medical authorities.
Wide currency has been given to the allegations made by a former rehabilitation worker in Kenya, Miss Fletcher, to whom the right hon. Gentleman referred, regarding conditions in some of the camps and, in particular, regarding the treatment of young persons, young girls.

Mr. Creech Jones: I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will not confuse this matter. I was referring to young persons in the prison camps and the prison compounds. I did not refer to young persons in detainee camps.

Mr. Hare: I am grateful to the right hon. Gentleman. I think he was referring in fact to the points made by Miss Fletcher in various articles which she has published in the Press.
I should like to make three points regarding these allegations. First, this lady brought none of these matters to the attention of the authorities of Kenya when she was in their employment.

Mr. Creech Jones: I really cannot allow that statement to go unanswered. Before Miss Fletcher left Kenya she saw not only the persons with whom she had been working, but she saw also the Chief Secretary and gave him the information which she has used in this country, and warned him that unless something was done she would be obliged to inform the British public of what she had discovered.

Mr. Hare: I regret to say that my information is precisely to the contrary, that she made no communication to the Chief Secretary or to anybody else on those matters. I am perfectly prepared to investigate that, but I should not have made that statement unless I was sure of my facts. [An HON. MEMBER: "It is not true."] I have said that I am perfectly prepared to investigate it, but my information is as I have just given it to the House.
The most striking allegation which the right hon. Gentleman mentioned alleged


that a girl of 11 and a girl of 12 had been sentenced to long terms of imprisonment. Those allegations, as far as my information goes, are utterly untrue.

Mr. Fenner Brockway: rose —

Mr. Hare: May I just finish, because what I have to say deals with this particular point. Third, what I have just said is backed up by representatives of the Churches and of the Society of Friends in Kenya, who, I would submit to the House, are closer to these matters than many people in this country.

Mr. Creech Jones: With reference to the second point made by the right hon. Gentleman, I have here a statement signed by the Commissioner of Prisons, indicating the prison number of each of the two children concerned, the nature of their offences, the period of their imprisonment. There can be absolutely no dispute whatsoever as to the truthfulness of the statement which Miss Fletcher made.

Mr. Hare: Yes, but what the right hon. Gentleman has not got is the age of these girls.

Mr. Creech Jones: I have.

Mr. Hare: I also have made inquiries here; there is no doubt that the ages of 11 and 12 given for these girls are not correct.

Mr. Aneurin Bevan: There has been a series of circumstantial charges made by a lady who had very special advantages for finding out the facts, more intimate and special advantages than had many others. She has made these charges, and all we are having, apparently, is a refutation from the very people against whom the charges have been made. Surely that is not enough.

Mr. Hare: The right hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Bevan) is jumping to conclusions. I am making three points on this important series of charges. A number of hon. Gentlemen and hon. Ladies probably wish to make reference to these charges, and this is one of the main points with which my right hon. Friend, who is to wind up the debate, intends to deal. I thought it would be only fair to hon. Members opposite that I should give them some indication of the facts in our possession.

Mr. Bevan: Surely this is not playing fair with the Committee. We have been trying to discuss this matter in a very dispassionate fashion. We had no intention of taking a Division this evening but that may not remain the position unless we get a satisfactory answer. We desire to have this investigation made in a proper way. We do not want once more, as we have seen before, the Colonial Secretary to mount a verbal escalator at the end of the debate and provide us with no reply at all. The Minister of State is replying for the Government now. He knows what the charges are, and we should know the Government's answer now.

Mr. James Johnson: Is it not a fact that the two young ladies must have been in an open court with a British judge at a certain moment in time? Can the right hon. Gentleman tell us when they were in court, who was the judge and what were the sentences?

Mr. Hare: I cannot give details of the court or the name of the judge. What I can say is that these allegations are untrue. [HON. MEMBERS: "Oh."] So far as the right hon. Member for Ebbw Vale is concerned, nobody wishes to have an escalator speech at the end of the debate. The right hon. Gentleman is very good at it himself and I gather that he will be winding up for his side of the Committee. I assure hon. Members that my right hon. Friend the Colonial Secretary will deal in great detail with all the charges. I have said that they are untrue.

Mr. Bevan: On a point of procedure, Sir Charles. This really is not fair. Kenya has not been debated in the House for a long time. I was hoping that the Secretary of State himself would open for the Government today so that we could have an authoritative answer. This is not good enough. The charges are known, they have been published in newspapers and they have been canvassed upstairs. All the circumstances have been present to the minds of the Government and they have had a long time to consider them. They were asked Questions in the House, and the right hon. Gentleman said that he would make inquiries and let us know. Now is his opportunity, but, apparently, we are to debate during the whole of the evening before we know the Government's answer to these charges.


That really is not good enough. If it is persisted in and we have the same sort of answer at the end of the debate, we shall have to divide.

Mr. Hare: If the right hon. Gentleman wishes to divide, he can. I repeat that my right hon. Friend will give a very fair and full answer to the detailed charges which are raised, not only by the right hon. Gentleman—

Mr. Brockway: The right hon. Gentleman indicated earlier that he would give way to me when he had finished the point he was making. Is he now prepared to do so?

Mr. Hare: I will certainly give way to the hon. Member.

Mr. Brockway: When the right hon. Gentleman says that the charges that children aged 11 and 12 are in prison in Kenya are untrue, is he aware that I have in my possession the actual official records from the prison concerned, giving dates, which at a later stage I hope to have the opportunity of reading to the Committee?

Mr. Hare: I hope that the hon. Member will have the opportunity of making the speech he wants to make, but I am equally certain that my right hon. Friend will be prepared to give him a fair and just answer.

Mr. Hobson: rose—

Mr. Hare: I have given way a number of times.

Mr. Hobson: On a point of order, Sir Charles. It is obvious from the interchange between the two Front Benches that information is available concerning the allegations by the lady in question. How can the Committee debate the matter effectively and arrive at a conclusion when this information, on the admission of the Treasury Bench, is being denied to the Committee?

The Chairman: I cannot see how the Committee can arrive at a decision, but it is not a point of order.

Mr. Hare: I do not wish to treat the Committee with any disrespect. I have given way on a number of occasions, I have listened to all the points which have been raised and I have given the

assurance that my right hon. Friend will deal with them.
There are a lot of things I want to say which give a proper basis for this debate, and I want to get on with it. The release of detainees is at the rate of approximately 2,000 a month. This corresponds with only 850 six months ago and 600 twelve months ago. To meet the need to provide homes and employment for those who are released, various schemes have been launched such as the Mwea/Tebere irrigation project, the forest resettlement project and the land consolidation measures in the reserves. Several pilot schemes for the return of Kikuyu, Embu and Meru to the farms of the Rift Valley province are now in operation and the first signs are encouraging. These measures will take time to make their full contribution, but the impetus of their development is increasing and land consolidation, in particular, is having encouraging results in enhancing the productive and carrying capacity of the rich lands of the Central Province.
Hon. Members will be aware of allegations which have been made about the malnutrition of African children in Kenya and the lack of care for women and children, particularly of the women whose husbands have been detained. The problem of the care of women and children can be divided into two parts: the particular and temporary problem caused by the displacement of families during the emergency, and the long-term problem of ensuring the welfare of the children.
During the height of the emergency there was considerable population movement of the Kikuyu back into their land unit. Many of them had lost touch with their clans of origin, and relief works were therefore organised by the Provincial Administration, who did much to attempt to relieve distress. Nevertheless, it can be understood that when the Civil Administration still had its hands full with the progress of the emergency and the Medial Department was again taxed with problems arising from the emergency, it was necessary to find workers who could devote their whole time to the relief of distress. So in April, 1954, the first two field workers were sent out to Kenya by the British Red Cross at the Government's request. There are now, I am glad to say, eighteen field workers, of whom all but three are working in the Central


Province. It is hoped that shortly the numbers engaged outside the Central Province will be considerably increased.
Whilst attending to the individual cases of distress, the Red Cross workers also had to face the larger problem of subnutrition among children. A survey has recently been conducted by the Medical Department with the co-operation of the missions and the Red Cross, and the resulting figures are still awaited. Until they have been carefully examined it is not possible to give any forecast of the findings. Experience shows, however, that much of the sub-nutrition which has been found among Kikuyu children is due not to the emergency, but to ignorance of proper diet on the part of the parents. The right hon. Gentleman laughs, but this is true. It is one of the results of closer administration that subnutrition has come to light. For example, it has been noticed that thin and undernourished children are frequently the children of well-fed parents. I am glad the right hon. Gentleman knows about it. I did not know he had had personal dealings with it.

Mr. Bevan: We were told a few years ago that it was poppycock.

Mr. Hare: I am glad to say that the response to a campaign to combat ignorance and selfishness on the part of many of the parents has been encouraging and much voluntary help has been forthcoming. I express my very real thanks to the Red Cross and to other volunteers who have been doing splendid work in this sphere.

Mr. Leslie Hale: We all agree with that. Will the right hon. Gentleman tell us what are the lowest wages now paid on European farms? The Colonial Survey shows that the African cost of living has risen by 325 per cent. since 1939 and there appears to be no minimum wage on the farms. Wages in 1952 were as low as 14s. a week.

Mr. Hare: They are higher than that. I cannot give the exact figure, but I am sure my right hon. Friend will take up that point and mention it in his winding-up speech.

Mrs. Barbara Castle: The right hon. Gentleman has made a serious allegation about ignorance among the Africans being responsible for malnutrition. I am prepared to pay a glowing

tribute to the work which is being done by the Red Cross, but is the right hon. Gentleman aware that the Government are not setting an example? I visited a Government orphanage in the Nyeri district in the presence of the District Commissioner, Mr. Pedrazza, and the sister in charge, in answer to a question, replied that no milk of any kind was given to the children unless they were ill.

Mr. Hare: I think the hon. Lady ought to try to make that point in her speech, and that it is not relevant to an interruption.
At this stage it would, perhaps, be appropriate if I paid a tribute to the Governor of Kenya, Sir Evelyn Baring, as well as to all those who have worked with him unremittingly during the darkest days of the emergency not only to restore law and order but also to rehabilitate those who have been tainted by Mau Mau. Even at the worst period of the emergency, which was in 1953, the Governor was insistent on the need to push forward with rehabilitation measures and to provide the machinery which would be needed to bring back into the life of the country all those who could be redeemed from the path of violence.
I myself paid a short visit to Kenya in the middle of 1954, and I can personally testify to this. His vision and determination are finding their reward in the rising rate of reabsorpton and in the feelings of confidence and hope for the future, which are much strengthened as the emergency wanes.
In September of this year, there will be elections in Kenya in which the Europeans and Asians will be electing representatives to the Legislative Council, and, as the Committee knows, it is the Kenya Government's intention to hold African elections by March of next year. Much detailed work is now being done in preparing for these elections on the basis of the report which the right hon. Member for Wakefield mentioned of the Commissioner, Mr. Coutts. This was accepted by the Legislative Council in February after certain modifications, which have been made by the Government of Kenya. These modifications were designed to broaden the base of the franchise while at the same time respecting the volume of evidence given to the Commissioner that, in these first electoral experiments, the African people


wished to see arrangements made which would return as their representatives men of quality and responsibility.
In view of these forthcoming elections, I would, with great respect to the Committee, suggest that none of us today should try to say anything which might adversely affect the continuation of cooperation between the races in the Government of Kenya, which is, as the right hon. Member for Ebbw Vale knows, Her Majesty's Government's declared policy. I think I can speak for both sides of the Committee when I say that we all sincerely hope that after those elections there will be in the Legislative Council in Kenya representative members of all the races who will give their whole-hearted support to the concept of multiracial Government, and who will carry on and consolidate this experiment, which has hitherto met with so much success.
As regards constitutional changes, which were mentioned by the right hon. Member for Wakefield, one of the terms of the reconstruction of the Government brought about by Lord Chandos—then Mr. Lyttelton—as Secretary of State was, in effect, that neither the Governor nor Her Majesty's Government will make proposals for constitutional changes before 1960 My right hon. Friend does not, however, regard himself as inhibited from considering agreed proposals put forward by representatives of all races in the Legislative Council. The representative members of the Legislative Council have, in fact, for some time been considering certain proposals in regard to the composition of the Legislative Council, but these have not yet been submitted for consideration by the Governor, and therefore my right hon. Friend and I can say no more on that point today.
I should like to remind the Committee, if a reminder is needed, that the state of emergency has, in fact, affected only a quarter of the population and approximately one-fifth of the total area of the Colony. The economy of Kenya is based on agriculture, both European and African. The development of African farming is based on the Swynnerton plan, of which the major objective is the establishment of planned family holdings throughout the more thickly populated African districts, where four-fifths of the African population live.
For this purpose, the support of the landholders is required, firstly, to bring together the scattered fragments of land into single holdings of reasonable size, and, secondly, to have these holdings surveyed and planned by the Agricultural Department. Three years ago, when the Swynnerton plan was drawn up, it was uncertain whether this support from the landholders would be obtained, or whether, on the contrary, there would be widespread opposition. Today, these uncertainties are disappearing, and in many parts of the Central Province Africans have given enthusiastic support.
I am glad to say that in the Central Province already 20,000 acres of land have been consolidated, of which 7,600 acres has already been planned. These plans include hedging and fencing, cattle sheds, water supplies, soil conservation, the use of manure and compost and the production of cash crops. A genuine and lively interest in farming is now very evident in a great many of these areas, and this is very encouraging indeed. Steps are now being taken to extend these operations, which have been proved in the Central Province, to other parts of the country, notably the Nyanza Province, where similar problems have been created by the growth of the population.
Unfortunately, in the last few days, and this is an illustration of the difficulties we meet in this matter, we have had news that the efforts being made to secure the support of the population for these measures have met with a slight setback—in Nyanza Province—illustrating yet again the patience and perseverance which must be employed in winning support for policies which affect the ownership and distribution of land. It is my hope that these suspicions will be overcome by patient explanation.
The crops on these planned holdings include high priced cash crops, such as coffee, tea, pyrethrum and pineapples, and the acreage under these and other crops is expanding rapidly. Many people seem to be under the impression that Africans are not allowed to grow coffee. There are 25,000 Africans owning over four million trees of coffee, and the coffee grown by Africans is of high quality. At the Royal Show in Nairobi last year, African-grown coffee carried off the first prizes.
In the European areas, with the advice and assistance of the Agricultural Department, the planning and development of mixed farming areas goes on steadily on lines basically the same as those described for the African areas. The object of this policy is the more intensive use of land and the bringing into production of areas hitherto undeveloped through lack of capital or knowledge of the farming methods most effective in the marginal lands of the European areas. The key to the expansion of the European agriculture is livestock, but large sums of capital must be invested to bring land and livestock up to full production.
Before the 1939–45 war, there was comparatively little industry in Kenya, but since the war there has been a spectacular increase in industrial activity. Anybody who has been to Nairobi can see this for himself. It is significant that in 1954, for the first time in the Colony's history, the proportion of the geographical net income attributable to the manufacturing industry was as great as the proportion attributable to European agriculture. A great part of this development has been in industry closely linked with agriculture.
The needs of a rapidly growing consumers' market are largely met by expanding industries, the products of which include such commodities as hurricane lanterns, pressure oil stoves, nails, furniture, matches, ready-made clothing and so on. The Government are taking every possible step to encourage and accelerate the development of industry, which has already provided opportunities for wage-earning employment for large numbers of Africans. Some 140,000 Africans are employed in industry and commerce today, and their wages and conditions of employment are steadily improving. [HON. MEMBERS: "What are they?"] I have explained the various difficulties of industry—

Mrs. Castle: But what are the wages?

Mr. Hare: I should he delighted to answer such questions if hon. Members would put them down. [Interruption.] The right hon. Gentleman is enjoying himself with badinage. I am trying to treat the debate seriously, even if the right hon. Gentleman is not.

Mr. Hale: Perhaps I can help the right hon. Gentleman on that point. In the

Survey the last figure given as the minimum wage in the industry is £3 10s. What we should like to know is to how many or to how few people it applies. All our information is that it applies to very few indeed.

Mr. Hare: I hope the hon. Member will make that point in debate. I do not wish to keep the Committee unduly. However, there are one or two other things I want to say. I am trying to answer some of the things the right hon. Member for Wakefield raised in his speech.
In the field of labour, the Kenya Government's policy, publicly stated on numerous occasions, is to foster the development of trade unions and staff associations. I am very grateful for the generous tribute which the right hon. Gentleman paid to the Labour Department of the Kenya Government. These are early days for the trade union movement in Kenya, but I am sure that the recent visits of Sir Vincent Tewson and Mr. Walter Hood of the Trades Union Congress have been an encouragement to the orderly development of genuine trade union activities. In particular, Sir Vincent Tewson's assistance in achieving a satisfactory settlement of the differences which arose between the Kenya Government and the Kenya Federation of Labour has been warmly appreciated by my right hon. Friend and myself.
I cannot, without making this speech much too long, do justice to the vast subject of education, which is the key to advance and on which the future of Kenya will so much depend. I hope that in the debate this topic will not be neglected. Its importance, obviously, will grow as we move into a future where resources can be released from the battle for security to strengthen the agencies of progress.
I will conclude by saying that we cannot regard the period of emergency in Kenya as yet at an end, but we can say with confidence that it is a phase of the history of that country which is now passing behind us. The forces of evil have almost been routed. While it is right, therefore, that we should look to the future, in forming our expectations and hopes we should not lightly forget the grim and very recent past.
Mau Mau, with its savagery and horror, will leave a deep scar in Kenya, but may


be out of this evil good also will arise, though those who live there will not readily forget the years of unrelenting anxiety. Nearly 600 members of the security forces were killed. Nearly 2,000 civilians, the great majority of whom were African victims of African barbarity, lost their lives. The uppermost thought in the mind of the Government of Kenya and the people of that country must be that things like Mau Mau cannot be allowed to rise again.
While we must rigorously advance on the new problems of the happier future we cannot afford complacency or abandon caution, but I can assure the Committee that the Government of Kenya are approaching the great tasks that lie ahead of them in a spirit of confidence for the future and with the determination to provide a secure and satisfying life for all the people of the Colony.

Mr. Bevan: Before the debate proceeds, may I make an appeal to the Secretary of State? He will know that all the principal organs of public opinion in Great Britain have welcomed this opportunity for discussing the situation in Kenya. He will know also that those allegations to which reference was made by my right hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield (Mr. Creech Jones) are considered very seriously. We understand that the Government have a reply. I am quite certain that my hon. Friends, and, indeed, hon. Members in all parts of the Committee, are perfectly prepared to give the right hon. Gentleman a second opportunity at the end of the debate if he wishes, but, surely, it would be desirable to put the Committee in possession of the Government's reply now, because if it is true that the Government have an effective answer to those allegations, it would dispose of them and the Committee could go on to consider the future, which is more important. We do not want to spend time on allegations if they are without foundation. We would much rather discuss education, the future of the constitution of Kenya, and a vast number of other things very much more important for the future. Can we dispose of the allegations now, or is the right hon. Gentleman merely waiting to score a cheap debating point at the end of the debate?

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: I should have thought that the right hon. Gentleman's intervention could have been made without that rather unworthy innuendo at the end of it. So many hon. and right hon. Members appear to want to take advantage of this debate to talk about that theme, as was shown by the number of people who interrupted my right hon. Friend during his speech, that I want to hear precisely what all the detailed charges are, and then I will reply. As the right hon. Gentleman knows, there are plenty of opportunities of cross-examining me after this debate is over. Next Wednesday and the Wednesday after colonial affairs are high in the list of Questions.
I understand that the hon. Member for Eton and Slough (Mr. Fenner Brockway) has actual prison records and documents with individual names. I have been at pains to try to identify the prisoners to whom those charges relate. Had hon. Gentlemen been really anxious to help me in this task of elucidation, would it not have been better and more helpful to have handed those documents to me before the debate, rather than to whip them out of their portfolios during the debate? I do not want to hide anything whatsoever. However, those documents of specific charges with individual names, if there are individual names, could properly and best have been used if they had been handed to me or to my Department at any time in the last week, instead of hon. Members waiting until the debate to whip them out, in the hope, no doubt, of catching me unawares.

Mrs. Castle: I have a copy here, but is the right hon. Gentleman aware that all we have is what is copied from the official prison records and is, therefore, just as much available to him—indeed, much more—than it is to us? Would he answer this question? If he says that these facts are untrue, is he telling the Committee that the Government of Kenya have informed him that their own prison records giving the particulars, the addresses, the ages and names of the young girls concerned, are wrong and false? If the right hon. Gentleman has not been able to ascertain the facts he is not in a position to answer the debate.

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: As I said before, I want to hear precisely what all the charges are. To answer now, half-way through,


would be an absurdity, and to have three Government speeches in a short debate like this would be an abuse.

Mr. Paget: There are a great many of us who are very anxious indeed to deal with the very important questions which we take very much to heart, but here is a specific charge, that three little girls have been sentenced to prison. If they have been so sentenced, it is clearly against the ordinance and illegal. The documents are there. Could we not get rid of this matter instead of spoiling the debate with this sort of nonsense? Then we could come to other things and the future.

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: The hon. and learned Gentleman knows perfectly well that it is not only one question, but a whole series of charges, on all of which I hope to be able to make comments. There is no suggestion that if I dealt with three cases in particular that would clear this matter away altogether. I am too old a Parliamentary hand to be deceived by a suggestion of that kind. At the end of the debate I will answer any charges made during the debate, and I await with interest the form which the charges may take.

5.8 p.m.

Mr. John Dugdale: The Minister made a most extraordinary speech. He complained that there were criticisms, but what did he expect? Did he think there would be none? Does he think no criticism can be made of the Government's handling of the situation in Kenya?

Mr. Hare: I said that in a 55-minute speech only five minutes were spent by the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Wakefield (Mr. Creech Jones) in speaking constructively, and that the rest of his speech consisted of criticism.

Mr. Dugdale: I am sure that all my hon. and right hon. Friends will join with me in paying tribute to the work of the district officers, and we on this side think that they have done their work the more creditably because of the grave difficulties the Government have imposed upon them. They have a very hard task to perform—made harder by the Government's handling of the situation—but to say that there should be no criticism seems to me quite intolerable, and the only reason the right hon. Gentleman said

so was that he was totally unable to answer it, and so, apparently, was the Secretary of State.
We have heard a good deal about Miss Fletcher, but it is a remarkable thing that the Government were quite unable to answer the charges of Miss Fletcher when originally Questions were asked about them in the House. The Secretary of State himself has said that Questions can be asked next week and the week after, but he was totally unable to answer those Questions a week ago.
I think my right hon. Friend the Member for Llanelly (Mr. J. Griffiths) will agree with me when I say that at the time when we had experience of the Colonial Office it was perfectly capable of finding out the answer to questions, in an infinitely shorter time, and I am sure that the Secretary of State could have answered these questions long before this.
I am not going to say definitely that all these charges are proven. It would be absurd to say at once that one agrees with all the charges, but I had the pleasure of meeting Miss Fletcher and I was very much impressed, not only by her honesty and sincerity but by her common sense and her ability to investigate problems. It seems to me that there is some likelihood that at least some of the charges, if not all, will be found to be proven. It is something that they were made. because until they were made the Secretary of State for the Colonies was apparently entirely unaware of the conditions in the prisons to which they refer.
I will not refer specifically to the charges relating to the girls of 11 years of age. I hope that one or two of my hon. Friends will be able to deal with them and will have greater details to give to the Committee, but it appears that there are children of 11 and there have been in the past children of 7 and 6 years of age who have been in camps on their own without their parents. Today I understand that no children under seven may be kept in such conditions, but apparently it was not until complaints were made by Miss Fletcher that this alteration was made. The Government here did nothing, nor did the Government in Kenya, until attention was called to these facts by people like Miss Fletcher who went out to investigate the position. That in itself is one subject for criticism.
It is very probable that the Secretary of State will reply that we on this side of the Committee do not understand Mau Mau and do not know of the terrible oaths that are taken. There was an exhibition in the Library some time ago showing the kind of things done by Mau Mau, and none of us would say that they were anything but quite revolting. But the first two oaths are not to betray Mau Mau and not to divulge Mau Mau secrets. It is one thing for a grown-up person to take those oaths but quite another for a child to say, "I must not give away secrets of a certain organisation to which my parents belong." Is that a crime for which that child may be sentenced to seven years' imprisonment?
It seems to me a gross miscarriage of justice that when crimes of that kind are perpetrated by children they are sent to prison on these charges. Are these very young children now kept separately on their own or are they allowed to mix with the much older toughs? Some of the criticisms were that they were not only mixed with the toughs but shackled to them. I hope that that practice never happened and that if it did it has now ceased. I have my doubts as to whether it never happened, but I hope that the Secretary of State can assure us that nothing of that kind occurs now.
I know that we all agree that it is much more serious that children should be in prison, but in the case of adults, even of those people who are accused of such terrible crimes as many of the Mau Mau have committed, we on this side of the Committee believe that it is quite wrong that the ordinary course of justice is altered simply because there are greater crimes and there is a crisis.
I quote the example of what Mr. Justice Cram said. He, after all, must surely be treated with some respect, even by hon. Members opposite. This is not a criticism by my hon. Friends but by a judge in Kenya. Admittedly it was said in April of last year, but that was some considerable time after the emergency had begun. He said;
People are taken by armed men, without warrant, detained, and, as it seems, tortured until they confess to alleged crimes, and then taken to trial on the sole evidence of these confessions.

This is a very serious charge indeed for a judge in Kenya to make. I should like to know whether these kind of conditions still apply and whether the Government can say that people are no longer taken in this way and that confessions are no longer dragged out of them in the manner described by the judge.
I think that all of us in the Committee will agree that prison warders have an extremely difficult task and that the warders in this country perform it admirably, but I think that the position is rather different when we have prison warders of one race and prisoners all of another race and there are the conditions of tension and turmoil that exist in Kenya today. In conditions like that, it is vitally important that there should be adequate control by the Government over what is done inside the prisons. I am not at all certain that the Government in this country has such adequate control. It is left, as obviously it must be, to a great extent to the local Government, and the local Government very often have in their employ warders who might be guilty of things of which warders in this country would never be guilty. We must have a full examination of what is done inside these prisons.
I understand from Miss Fletcher that even my hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mrs. Castle) had the wool drawn over her bright eyes when she went round one of the detention camps. She wanted to see how the screening was done. I understand from Miss Fletcher that arrangements were made that every-body should be given a holiday on that day so that no screening should be done.

Mrs. Castle: Yes, it happened.

Mr. Dugdale: That should not be allowed by the Government. The people who do that kind of thing should be brought up very sharply indeed. They should be told that in future anybody who pays a visit to a prison must be allowed to see conditions as they are and not entirely false conditions created for the day.
I agree that the warders' task is difficult, and not only in Kenya are there such difficulties. As the Minister of State for Colonial Affairs knows, I have sent him details of conditions alleged to prevail in other prisons outside Kenya, for example, in Salisbury, which are very


grave indeed. In Kenya it appears that there is abundant evidence that the conditions in prisons are not all that they should be.
I hope that this next charge made by Miss Fletcher can be disposed of. It is appalling. It is said that a man described as a rehabilitation officer says that he is sorry that lunatics are being sent away from the detention camps because it is much easier to put suspects in with them for a week or two, after which the suspects are in a condition to confess to anything. He says that it is much easier to do that than to have to depend, as he would otherwise, merely upon a light diet and a good thrashing. That is alleged to have been said by a rehabilitation officer. I do not know whether it is true, but it should be definitely answered by the Secretary of State. It does not inspire a feeling of confidence in the prison service of Kenya if it is true. I suspect that most of the people so employed in prisons have little experience of rehabilitation work. The best work has been done by visiting organisations, such as the Red Cross, and others who have had experience of that kind of work.
I come now to the question of the resignation of Colonel Young. The Government, quite rightly, in March, 1954, seconded Colonel Young from the position of Commissioner of Police in this country to do work in Kenya. He worked for nine months and then resigned his office. We have never been told why Colonel Young resigned. I understand that Michael Scott, in a sermon in St. Paul's Cathedral recently, mentioned this and asked once again for information as to why he had resigned.
It is thought that Colonel Young resigned because he objected to Europeans not getting sentences which they should get and that charges against Europeans have even been withdrawn under influence. I do not know whether that has happened, but it is a serious charge. I understand, too, that Colonel Young has at any rate not denied that this was the reason he resigned. I hope, therefore, that the Secretary of State can tell us what was the real reason which brought about the resignation of Colonel Young, whom he had himself appointed a short time before.

Mr. Hale: if I may interrupt my right hon. Friend, may I point out that the

Minister without Portfolio in the Kenya Legislative Assembly was reported last week as describing Colonel Young as an indiscreet policeman who has stabbed Kenya in the back? When a responsible Minister makes an attack of that kind on a distinguished public servant, he should be entitled to give his side of the case.

Mr. Dugdale: I entirely agree with my hon. Friend. Not only should Colonel Young be entitled to give his side of the case, but the Secretary of State owes it to him to make a statement as to what happened. That should be done, and even if he is today Commissioner of Police in this country, Colonel Young should be entitled to reply to that charge dealing with his tenure of office in Kenya. Unless that is done, there will be a feeling of grave injustice surrounding this case.
Numbers of us have made grave charges. Miss Fletcher has made grave charges. If even half of those charges are proven, it is a serious matter and it means that the detention camps and prisons in Kenya, for which this Government are responsible, have many features bearing a close resemblance to those in the Iron Curtain countries. We cannot talk too much about justice in the countries on the other side of the Iron Curtain until we are certain that there is justice in those countries for which we are responsible.
I realise the difficulties. It is not a question of running a kindergarten. I know there is an emergency. I know that it is hard to keep the course of justice right during an emergency. But, after all, let us remember that the emergency in Kenya is not the only emergency in a British Colony today. My hon. Friend the Member for Eton and Slough (Mr. Fenner Brockway) called attention to the fact a week or so ago that, although there has been a great outcry about two executions in Cyprus during the present emergency, there have been I,000 executions in Kenya.
What about the question of detainees? Let me give the figures for three places where there is still an emergency. Early this year, 1956, the number of people detained in Cyprus without trial was 297. In Malaya it was 683. In Kenya it was 43,513. That cannot be right. Conditions in Kenya cannot be so much


worse than conditions in those other countries. This means that the administration of justice in Kenya is conducted on a different basis from the administration of justice in those other countries. The Secretary of State must reply to these allegations if we are to be satisfied that there is not grave injustice in the administration of justice in Kenya.
In conclusion, I shall refer to the statement made by the Minister of State about malnutrition—

Mr. W. R. Rees-Davies: Before the right hon. Gentleman goes on to that other point, I hope he is not suggesting to the Committee in his remarks on prisons that those hon. Members of this House who had the privilege of being in Kenya have not had the fullest opportunities of seeing the detention camps and the prisons. I myself, without any restrictions, saw them all, and I had the opportunity of crossexamining the detainees in the camp which I visited. [HON. MEMBERS: "All?"] The hon. Gentleman the Member for Coventry, East (Mr. Crossman), a colleague of the right hon. Gentleman, was there when I was. I think he will confirm that he had the same opportunity, as did other colleagues of mine sitting behind me on these benches. It simply would not be fair for the right hon. Gentleman to convey the impression that there was not a fair opportunity—

Hon. Members: Speech.

Mr. Dugdale: I am ready to recognise that hon. Gentlemen and hon. Ladies have been round the detention camps, but I was saying that it is difficult to get a clear idea of them from a single visit, especially from a visit which it is known in advance will take place. That is the important point. I know myself that when I was at the Admiralty I paid particular pains to visit detention quarters without notice—and those were British detention quarters. That was not done in the case I have mentioned.

Mr. Rees-Davies: rose—

Hon. Members: Do not give way.

The Temporary Chairman (Sir Robert Grimston): If the right hon. Member does not give way, the hon. Gentleman must sit down.

Mr. Rees-Davies: With respect, Sir Robert—

Hon. Members: Order, order.

Mr. Dugdale: A number of my hon. Friends and also hon. Gentlemen opposite wish to speak, and I want to bring my remarks to a conclusion in order to give them an opportunity of doing so.

Dame Irene Ward: Sit down then.

Mr. Dugdale: The hon. Lady also wishes to speak. I hope she will be able to do so.

Dame Irene Ward: I am glad that my hon. Friend made his intervention.

Mr. Dugdale: I hope the hon. Lady will be able to give some information about the girls who, we hear, are in prison. Perhaps she will speak about that matter. I want to say something about malnutrition, because I think that the remarks of the Minister of State were extraordinary. The right hon. Gentleman said that malnutrition was due to the ignorance and selfishness of the parents. Has the right hon. Gentleman himself ever tried to live on £3 a week, let alone £3 a month, which many of them have to do? It is extremely difficult. It is intolerable for the Minister to say that these people are suffering hunger because of the neglect of their parents, when he knows perfectly well that they are suffering it largely because of the present conditions in Kenya.
The facts we have heard today, both from Miss Fletcher and from other sources, give cause for grave anxiety. The number of detainees, the conditions of the detainees and the difference between the detention position in Kenya as compared with other Colonies—all these give cause for grave disquiet, which can only be removed by a searching inquiry into the whole system of justice in Kenya. I hope that such an inquiry will take place. If it does not, we on this side of the Committee will not rest content unless we can be assured that justice is being carried out in Kenya in the way that we feel British justice should be carried out in every Colony.

5.29 p.m.

Mr. C. W. Armstrong: I shall not attempt to follow the right hon. Gentleman the Member for West Bromwich (Mr. Dugdale), who raised a


large number of points with which my right hon. Friend the Colonial Secretary will no doubt deal in due course. I want to look for a moment at what I believe to be the bright side of the emergency, or as I would prefer to call it by the more human, Irish description, the troubles in Kenya; because there is a bright side.
I am thinking, for instance, of the work which is has been possible to do in the Kikuyu Reserve on soil conservation, on the making of villages and on the consolidation of fragmented holdings. In former days this kind of work was very often hindered, if not prevented, by mischievous propaganda suggesting that, if people co-operated, when the work was finished the land would be taken from them and handed over to Europeans. Because of the Emergency Powers, it has been possible to press on with all these developments, and the speed of development is astonishing. I imagine, for instance, that the development in the consolidation of holdings is far faster than the Royal Commission would have believed possible.
The moral is that when we know what should be done we should not allow ourselves to be hindered by criticism which is often ill-informed, if not mischievous. If we press on with these developments, I believe that the people concerned will see by the results that they are worth while. For instance, in the consolidation of holdings it is no longer a matter of trying to persuade the Kikuyu that it is for their benefit; it is now a matter of trying to find enough surveyors to meet the demand to carry out these consolidations fast enough. Similarly, I believe that one of the great values of the Royal Commission Report is that it is a review quite above any suspicion of favouring one section of Kenya's people at the expense of another and that it shows us the road along which we can press with confidence and with an easy conscience.
I want to say a little about the integrated or the united society for which, I suppose, we all hope in Kenya. The first thing to bear in mind, perhaps, is that the difficulties which exist in Kenya also exist in many other countries, and that they are quite independent of colour and many of them quite independent of race. They are difficulties which arise, for instance, in India, in Egypt, and in Persia, and which arose much nearer

home in Ireland—problems, for instance, of poverty, with contrasts in wealth and lack of capital; problems of lack of education, with contrasts in culture and lack of talent; problems of land hunger, with contrasts in size of holdings and much misuse of land.
But, unhappily, in Kenya all these contrasts are sharpened and crystallised by colour. I often wish that all who live in Kenya could in these matters become colour-blind, so that men of all races, according to their qualities and their abilities, could work towards the common end. As it is, all races have their distinctive contributions to make—the immigrant races their skill and their capital, and the Africans, for the present, mainly their labour. As time goes on, Africans also will acquire skill and capital, and surely it should be the aim of all of us to help the Africans as quickly as possible to acquire both skill and capital, because in a developing country there should be room for all.
I think we also need to bear in mind that as a solution to the difficulties of a multi-racial society, co-operation is an experiment and a new attempt at solving the problem. Of course, there have been many multi-racial societies in history before. Almost throughout history the pattern has been domination by one race, and some of these dominations have brought great benefits to the human race. The Roman Empire, the Mogul Empire in India and the British Empire in their great days all brought peace and justice and good government to great areas of the world.
More recently, the solution of the tensions of a multi-racial society has much more often been separation. We think of Scandinavia, the Low Countries, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, Palestine, Ireland and India. We see the same solution pressing on the countries now coming to self-government.
In Kenya, both domination and separation have been rejected; and they have been rejected, I think, with the assent of the majority of the Europeans who live in that country. At the same time, it is fair to realise that for a once-dominant race to plunge into the solution of cooperation with races far more numerous than themselves is a daunting experience, and it is fair that we in this country


should do nothing to make that plunge more difficult for them.
Perhaps I can best introduce what I now want to do, which is to try, if I can, to put a point of view which I think is inclined sometimes to go by default in this House—the point of view of the ordinary working, perhaps rather inarticulate, European settler in Kenya. I should like to quote to the House a remark once made to me by the wife of a retired bishop who had served for many years in other parts of the world and had retired to England. As it happened, they had not served in Africa. At home function she was making conversation with me and she asked me what I was doing. This was before I became a Member of Parliament. I said that I was a farmer in Kenya. She looked at me a little sorrowfully and said, "What a predicament for a Christian man".
Of course, there is the view that no European has any right to be in Africa at all—at any rate, no right to be there to exploit the resources of the country for profit; but I understand that that is not the point of view held by either party in this country. I think it is true to say that both parties when in power have encouraged European settlement in Kenya.
How does this look to the European settler. whose point of view I am trying to put? I think his inspiration in Kenya is much less profit from what he is doing than a sense of achievement in winning undeveloped land to a state of tamed production. With that sense of achievement comes a sense of passionate attachment to the land which he is winning, and very often a great sense of comradeship with the Africans who have helped him to achieve what he set out to do.
What are the conditions in Kenya for the European striving in this way? He does not live in a Welfare State. As far as they exist at all, he has himself to provide the services which we take for granted in this country. He has to build the roads, make the water supply, provide the medical attention for his labour and provide the schools. On the other hand, he pays taxation, Income Tax and Surtax, higher than in any country in the world except this country and India. Therefore, the immigrant races in Kenya in fact supply the surplus taxation which

must go to pay for the development of the country in the interests, quite properly, of all the races in it.
For example, in the year ending June, 1955, there was paid in Income Tax and personal Surtax—the taxes paid not by Africans but by the immigrant races—£8,750,000. There was paid by Africans in poll tax £650,000, so that in fact over 90 per cent. of the direct taxation in Kenya was paid by the immigrant races. That is quite right and proper. It may be said that it is an indication of the poverty of the African, but the point I am trying to make is that surely it disposes of the argument that the European in Kenya is merely an exploiter and merely an incubus to be shaken off as quickly as may be.
I think that the ordinary European in Kenya is much more aware, much more conscious, of his duty towards the development of the country in which he lives than ever occurs to people living here in an already fully developed country. When the European in Kenya tries to safeguard his position, I do not believe that he is thinking in terms of dominating anybody. He is thinking only in terms of safeguarding his position, so that he may go on earning his livelihood making his contribution to the development of the country in which he lives in peace and under a fair and orderly Government.
I know that in all countries where people are not as advanced as we are it is very difficult to help without causing a sense of resentment, even of humiliation, and so no doubt it will be in Kenya; but I believe that in Kenya we have a great fund of good will on which to draw born of the working together, of Africans and Europeans, to common ends. I think, for instance, of the Capricorn Society with its African members. I think of the African families helped by those devoted Red Cross workers to whom allusion has been made. I think of the many thousands of Africans who work with their European officers in all branches of the Administration and the many thousands of Africans who have been helped by them. I think of Africans who have worked, quite often for their whole lives, helping one farmer to develop one farm and, last, but by no means least, I think of the many young Africans and young Europeans who have spent many weary hours on patrols and operations


fighting together against the Mau Mau which threatened to destroy their country.
I believe that if all these people can go on working together and can resist the bitter and often selfish criticism of the extremists on both sides, there is still indeed a happy future for Kenya.

5.45 p.m.

Mr. A. Fenner Brockway: I should like to express from this side of the Committee appreciation of the speech of the hon. Member for Armagh (Mr. Armstrong). I remember when the hon. Gentleman made his maiden speech on the subject of Kenya and how impressed we were then. That impression has been deepened by the spirit in which he spoke today.
I assure the hon. Member that if there is criticism of the régime in Kenya there is also appreciation of the terrible tension which the lonely farmer, protecting his farm at night and working through the day, guarding his family under the conditions of the last four years, has continually had to face. I have met such men. I assure the hon. Member that we understand the tension of those terrible years. I assure him also that we have in mind the fact the the greatest sufferers from Mau Mau have been members of the African Kikuyu tribe. Not one word will be said, or ever has been said, from this side of the Committee which in any way defends the violence or the atrocities of Mau Mau.
I want also to acknowledge immediately the good features there have been during the last four years. There are not only the schemes to which the hon. Member referred, though we must bear in mind that many of those schemes have been carried out by prison labour, forced labour or detained labour. There are not only the big schemes referred to by my right hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield (Mr. Creech Jones). I have in mind just one little community project in Kenya in which seems to me to be concentrated the whole hope for the future. It is at Machakos, under the Community Development Department. I refer to the agricultural development there, the model houses, the tractors and the repair sheds for tractors, the well-cared-for cattle, the efforts to maintain health, and the formation of women's clubs—and, goodness knows, if any country wants a women's

revolution it is Kenya. These things are in all our minds, and I assure the hon. Member that we are as conscious of them and as disturbed by them as can be any hon. Member opposite.
I suggest that the Minister was not quite fair when he complained that my right hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield made a speech in which five minutes had been appreciation and forty-five minutes had been criticism. We express our appreciation, but it is most important that hon. Members should be vigilant for liberty and justice in the Colonial Territories. It is most important that we should accompany our criticism by constructive proposals of the character of those made by my right hon. Friend.
I admit at once that, in the emergency conditions of the last four years in Kenya, incidents have occurred in the atmosphere of violence for which we cannot make the Government or the Administration in Kenya responsible. I shall suggest, however, that the Government themselves also have some responsibilities. I do not propose to develop the criticism of the administration of justice; the series of trials which have shocked hon. Members and a large part of the British public, and the criticism which was made of Colonel Young and his dismissal when he criticised the police system and its relationship to the Administration in Kenya.

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: I hope the hon. Member will correct his use of the word "dismissal". That is not an accurate description of Colonel Young's departure from Kenya.

Mr. Brockway: I thank the right hon. Gentleman, and I will readily correct my statement. I should have referred to the resignation of Colonel Young—may I say, under pressures which would make it difficult for him to retain his position?
In addition to that criticism of the Administration, I want to draw attention to certain broad facts for which the Government of Kenya and the Secretary of State have a direct responsibility. The first is the appalling fact that, at this moment, over 40,000 Africans in Kenya are detained without trial. A few years ago a case of detention without trial would have aroused the libertarian sense of many Members, but now it can mount to the huge figure of 41,000, many of whom have been before the courts; have


been found innocent in those courts, and are yet retained in detention. That is a feature of the conditions in Kenya of which none of us with any sense of liberty can be proud.
My second general charge against the Administration concerns the appalling figures which the right hon. Gentleman gave me this week in relation to the execution of 1,015 Africans in Kenya in the last four years, of whom only 297 had committed murder. By majorities the House has carried decisions against the retention of the death penalty for murder in this country, but in one of our Colonies over 1,000 persons have been hanged, of whom only 297 had been charged with murder. Even in the first quarter of this year, despite the easier conditions in Kenya, 44 Africans were executed, of whom only eight were found guilty of murder. At the height of the Mau Mau difficulties, in the third quarter of 1954, of the 223 executions which took place, only 24 were in respect of persons found guilty of murder. That is an appalling commentary upon our administration in that Colony.
The third point to which I want to draw attention—which may not seem a very serious one—is the practice of having manacled prisoners in Kenya prisons. In 1954, the number of manacled prisoners was 2,818. They can be kept in leg-irons for up to three months. I have seen them in East African prisons chained foot to foot, and hardly able to shuffle about. That is an inhumanity of which this country, the Government and the House of Commons ought to be utterly ashamed.
The next matter to which I want to draw attention has already been referred to more than once in the course of this debate. It concerns the charges brought by Miss Eileen Fletcher. First, let me say that Miss Fletcher's own record is such that it deserves the serious consideration of the Committee. She has served for 14 years in responsible Government posts. For two years, during the war, she was in charge of welfare and education in a camp for 3,000 displaced Poles in Uganda. For one year she was in a rehabilitation camp for ex-prisoners of war, and for four years she has been engaged in psychiatric social work. With that kind of record, no one who brings

charges should have them lightly dismissed.
Miss Fletcher went to Kenya in December, 1954, was appointed rehabilitation officer by the Kenya Government, and became a staff officer in charge of the rehabilitation of women and girls in Mau Mau detention camps and prisons throughout the country. She resigned after seven months because of her dissatisfaction with the conditions. Earlier in the debate, the Minister of State remarked that she had not made complaints to the authorities in Kenya. There is report after report from her; there is letter after letter from her to the responsible prison authorities in Kenya, complaining of the conditions in the detention camps and prisons. It was only because she could not secure the improvement of conditions for which she asked that she resigned after seven months' service, and even then she agreed to continue her work for another five months because of the difficulty of finding a successor.
I find it a little ironical that in the document it issued replying to Miss Fletcher's charges the Colonial Office should have said that Kamiti prison, for which she was responsible, had all the facilities for an approved school, including qualified teachers, daily sewing and knitting classes, and daily games. It was Miss Fletcher who initiated those schemes. It was in August last year, when she resigned, that she was informed by the commandant that those schemes would have to stop. In November of last year those schemes were not being applied to women or child prisoners; they were being applied only to detainees. When the right hon. Gentleman replies, I ask him to tell the Committee when the schemes which have been described—concerning teachers, and an approved school—were reintroduced after Miss Fletcher's departure from her post.
I shall take the actual charges made by Miss Fletcher and give the replies issued by the Colonial Office since then. First, there is the charge that children of eleven and twelve years of age are in prisons in Kenya. The Minister of State—or it may have been the Secretary of State himself; I think I caught his voice from the Gallery when I visited it—complained, and asked why, if we had the facts in our hands, we did not send the


right hon. Gentleman those facts, so that he could reply to this debate?
I wish to say this to him. The essential facts were published by Miss Fletcher in an article which appeared in Peace News on 4th May. I have in my hand a reproduction of it in pamphlet form which has just been published. There are given the ages of the children and the offences for which they were committed one after another, making a long list. When I saw that list I wrote to Miss Fletcher asking her for dates, for prison numbers and for the details of the prison records. If I could write to Miss Fletcher in that way, the right hon. Gentleman could have written to the responsible officer in a similar way.
I made that request last week. I have received the information this week, and I propose to read to the Committee the facts which are now in my possession.

Mr. Godfrey Nicholson: I have just come into the Chamber. It may be that the hon. Gentleman has already given the information, but may I ask when exactly did Miss Fletcher resign?

Mr. Brockway: I have already given that information. She resigned in August of last year, but she retired from the job in November of last year.
Now may I give the facts as I have them in my hands? First, the charge that children of eleven and twelve are in the prisons of Kenya. I have in my hand cases with the prison number, the date of admission, the age and the offence. I propose to read three of them to the Committee. This is at Kamiti Prison.
The first case is prisoner No. 13222/J. Admitted, 21.9.54. Age 11. Kikuyu/Nanyuki. Charged with taking illegal oath, two counts. Two years hard labour and five years hard labour. consecutive.
The second case is Prisoner No. 12795/J. Admitted, 20.8.54. Age 12. Kikuyu/Kiambu. Pagan illiterate. Charge, consorting. Sentence. Governor's pleasure. Maximum security.
The third case is—

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: What is the age?

Mr. Brockway: The age is twelve.

Mr. Bevan: What is "Governor's pleasure"?

Mr. Brockway: I am asked to explain the sentence "Governor's pleasure.

Maximum security." That enables me to deal with a point which I had intended to raise later.
In the prisons of Kenya the sentence "Governor's pleasure. Maximum security" is always referred to as a life sentence. The prisoner remains under that sentence. It can be reviewed every four years, but if, after review, the prisoner is not released and there is another four years, it is, in effect, a life sentence. I have official prison documents which refer to these prisoners as "lifers" and as "life imprisonment convicts".
The third case is Prisoner No. 7966/J. Admitted, 12.6.54. Age 12. Kikuyu/Fort Hall. Pagan illiterate. Charge, consorting with armed persons. Sentence. Governor's pleasure. Maximum security.
The second charge which Miss Fletcher has made is that juveniles in Kenya are put to hard labour. That charge also is denied in the statement issued from the Colonial Office. The Nairobi Government said, on 25th May, that none of the girls is doing hard labour, and that was confirmed in this country. I realise that under prison conditions "hard labour" has very little meaning. When one is in prison, in an English prison at least, hard labour makes little difference. I give this statement as it was given to me by Miss Fletcher.
I have seen girls carrying pisé blocks which are quite heavy and young women carrying bowls of mud for brick making. A prison visitor complained of them having to cut up large tree roots.
This is confirmed in a report from the senior African rehabilitation assistant, dated 27th June, 1955. initialled by the commandant of Kamiti Prison, which states that
100 long-term juvenile convicts continued their work of mud brick constructions, and pisé houses in the prison.
In addition to that, which surely is hard labour for juveniles, there is the stark fact of the official prison record of a child of eleven being sentenced to seven years' hard labour.
I take the third charge, which is that of solitary confinement. Miss Fletcher has made the charge that 14 girls were kept in solitary confinement for 16 days for singing Mau Mau hymns. I have experienced solitary confinement myself. I know the effect upon the mind. These


girls were shut in tiny huts with only a glimmer of light and were kept in those huts for 16 days. I was not surprised to hear that Miss Fletcher said that as they left those huts she will never forget the expression of terror which was on their faces.
But I have more than Miss Fletcher's statement. I have in my hand a copy of a letter from the commandant, C. B. Alison, from Kamiti Prison, dated 12th May, 1955. It is a letter to Miss Fletcher. It states:
I regret that 14 of your lifers"—
observe that the term "lifers" is used—
have been sentenced to solitary confinement for singing Mau Mau hymns overnight. They will not be with you for 16 days I am afraid.
Yours sincerely, C. B. Alison.
The next charge is that of unaccompanied children in detention camps. The occupants of the detention camps are swept up in a mass raid, men, women and children, in houses and in streets. In those conditions, one is not surprised if a child is caught up when it has no parents accompanying it. The criticism is that these unaccompanied children are allowed to remain in detention camps. I have the figure for the Gilgil Camp, dated 12th February, 1955. In that camp there were 476 men, 114 women and 217 children. Of the 217 children 31 were unaccompanied by any adult.
There is the case of the Langata Detention Camp, where Miss Fletcher found a boy of four and a boy of seven who had no relative in the camp. I want to quote her again. She said:
They had been swept up and put into this compound with 330 juveniles, some aged 17, many of whom were real toughs. There were several such children and I took the matter up with the District Commissioner and asked that they should be released and taken to the place of safety run by the Red Cross and that in future any unaccompanied child under eight should be sent there direct and not to a camp. He was most reluctant to agree and it was only after much discussion on my part that he agreed to it for children under seven instead of eight as I had asked.
So, in detention camps in Kenya, we have children of eight swept up in a mass raid, without parents, without relatives and allowed to remain in camps when the Red Cross has an excellent service to which they could be transferred without difficulty. I make those charges and say that the denials which have been issued

by the Colonial Office have entirely failed to meet them.
Although some hon. Members may doubt it, I have a constructive mind and I intended to conclude my speech with constructive proposals for the development of Kenya. I refrain from so doing, only because I do not want to take an unfair amount of time in the debate. Ever since I was in Kenya, in 1950, I have had the vision of it becoming an interracial society where—to use the phrase of the hon. Member for Armagh—one would be "colour blind" and think not of European and Asian and African, but of human beings. That is still my great desire, but in recent months, when the Government have felt themselves on top of the Mau Mau situation, the concessions which were offered a year or two ago have been whittled down.
One of the most disappointing reflections of that is a comparison of the speeches which Mr. Michael Blundell is delivering today and those which he delivered two years ago. To Europeans of progressive mind and good will in Kenya, I say that if we are really to achieve an inter-racial society there they have to go far beyond the point which they have at present revealed in the concessions which they will make to human equality.

6.15 p.m.

Mr. F. M. Bennett: I am sure that the hon. Member for Eton and Slough (Mr. Fenner Brockway) will agree that it would be useless and inappropriate for me to try to answer his specific and detailed charges as they should clearly be answered by the Secretary of State when he replies. In so far as the hon. Member's speech consisted of specific charges, it is only fair to add what a sensible and wise decision it was for the Secretary of State to resist pressure from the benches opposite and to delay his speech until the end of the debate. Had he made the opening speech as asked, the charges for him to answer would have been made afterwards. If, as has been said, in response to the intervention of the right hon. Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Bevan), the charges were already known and my right hon. Friend could have replied to them in an opening speech, then I do not know why we have been listening to the speech of the hon, Member for Eton and Slough.
I have not the slightest wish to detract from any work which Miss Fletcher has done in the past, nor say anything against her. I have not had the pleasure of meeting the lady and I do not know the value of her charges one way or the other. However, in view of the intervention of my hon. Friend the Member for Farnham (Mr. Nicholson) a few minutes ago, it seems something of a pity that, if she was aware of these alleged illegalities, as opposed to mere general charges—and she retired only in November—she did not seek to let the Secretary of State know immediately she arrived in the country that the illegalities were occurring.
For, whether they agree with his policies or not, all hon. Members will agree that there is no one more amenable to meeting people about colonial matters than my right hon. Friend. Had Miss Fletcher made her charges at once instead of waiting until May, my right hon. Friend would have investigated them long ago.

Mr. Creech Jones: It should be on the record that before she left Kenya Miss Fletcher met not only the prison authorities, but those of the Colonial Secretary and made these charges.

Mr. Bennett: That is a subject of dispute on which I can give no decision one way or the other. I was merely saying that she should have taken those steps as soon as she arrived in this country instead of writing articles in a newspaper six months later.
It is always easy for one to form a wrong or misleading impression from the sort of visit to institutions or camps which is all that the limited time of the Member of Parliament will often afford. Like some hon. Members opposite, I have visited camps in Kenya and I think that I am not incorrect in saying that the hon. Lady the Member for Flint, East (Mrs. White) and I went to one particular camp together with some other hon. Members as well as others from various parts of the Commonwealth. The rehabilitation work of this camp was run by gentlemen belonging to the Moral Rearmament faith about which as such I say nothing today, one way or the other, but the hon. Lady will agree that they were doing very gallant work.
We were conducted through the camp and we saw no signs of brutality or

abuses. As we passed various enclosures, attempts were made by the detainees to hand us written petitions about some problem or protest which they had to make. I asked the supervising officer whether I was able to take them and read them, or whether there was some security reason against doing that. He said that I could take them, read them and make what use I liked of them, provided that I informed the authorities of any security content which they might have.
He left me alone to walk around the camp and I collected some of these petitions and protests. I went through seven or eight enclosures collecting petitions and in no single instance had they anything to do with any form of alleged ill-treatment. In every case they were attempts at nationalistic justification of Mau Mau, and declared, for example, that the White Highlands should be given up by the white man, or something like that. They did not deal with anything other than the political situation regarding Mau Mau.
There is a difference between spontaneous visits and notified visits to a camp, between those visits which are arranged and those when we go unannounced ahead on our own. Although I had no chance to go to a camp without warning, I did, having had some legal experience as a barrister in this country, take a special interest in the administration of the law. Without any pre-warning, I went to a court of law with some other professional friends. We saw Mau Mau suspects being tried for a capital offence, the possession of arms. I was certainly impressed on this spontaneous and unexpected visit at the way in which the trial was carried on.
It concerned five young Mau Mau men who were found by the Home Guard, hiding in long grass. Among them they had two large pangas and one gun. The evidence by the African Home Guard seemed conclusive. The weapons were there and the accused did not deny that they had the weapons. The point was which of them had them. A very clever Indian lawyer was briefed for the defence, and he so confused the African Home Guard by his cross-examination—the hon. and learned Member for Northampton (Mr. Paget) would have admired it—that in the end the Home Guard made contradicting statements as to who had the


guns and who had the pangas, or who had had any weapons at all.
The result was that all five suspects were acquitted after a very fair trial. We could not have had anything better in a trial in this country. The accused were only saved by an extremely brilliant advocate and in view of the prima facie evidence, nothing else could have saved them.

Mr. R. T. Paget: Could the hon. Gentleman say how many of the 1,015 men hanged had legal representation?

Mr. Bennett: I do not pretend to have those figures. The hon. and gallant Gentleman can probably obtain them much better at Question Time than from me. As a matter of fact, in the three trials that I saw legal representatives were there. I understand that they are always there to cover such serious charges, but I may be quite wrong.
Speaking more generally, I am sure that at the very beginning of this emergency there was a general feeling in this House that if Mau Mau had to be suppressed, as it had, it was much better that it should be done in some other way than just by European soldiers and police sent from this country; that is, by enlisting the anti-Mau Mau majority of the Kikuyu tribe. There is a general feeling that that was the right way to do it; not by developing white-black warfare but by marshalling the forces of law and order of any colour against Mau Mau.
When I was last in Kenya I saw ample evidence that that was the right decision to make, but it did leave itself open to certain disadvantages and abuses. We had to form security forces at very short notice from extremely primitive and in many cases illiterate and backward Africans. To get law and order enforced by such individuals in an area of vast size in difficult conditions, meant that it was inevitable, taking into account the feelings of revenge that existed in Africans who had been the victims of Mau Mau, that there would be abuses.
Yet what struck me most about the whole conduct of the emergency by the local African forces was the almost incredible restraint that they have shown. Many thousands of their friends and relatives had been butchered by the Mau Mau. I would not have been surprised

if there had been far more widespread retribution and revenge carried out than has been the case. I include, of course, the white settlers, but if that is true of those who have had the benefit of education and civilisation, how much more true it was of primitive Africans whose wives and children had been slaughtered under particularly unpleasant circumstances.
Reference has rightly been made today to the brighter side of the picture. As one goes round the Kikuyu country we do happily see good coming out of evil in the settlement of ancient land problems. I would like to pass on to my right hon. Friend the Colonial Secretary a plea that was made to me by several people in Kenya. I am not trying to lecture the Committee, but it is worth while putting the point on record again that the Kikuyu tribe is only one-sixth of the people of Kenya, and there are other tribes who have not joined in Mau Mau. The suspicion was aired to me by them that at the end of the fighting there might be more concentration upon improving the lot of the Kikuyu than of the other tribes who did not give trouble.
I make a serious plea to my right hon. Friend that while we must not, of course, neglect any opportunity of advance for the Kikuyu both socially and economically increasingly as the emergency comes to an end, that should not be done at the expense of those others who have been loyal to law and order from the start of the emergency. Indeed, if any preference is shown, it should be shown to those tribes who have not resorted to Mau Mau rather than to those who have.
Various remarks for and against have been made today about the behaviour of the bulk of the settlers in Kenya. I would like to add a tribute. This follows upon my earlier remarks about the restraint shown by the African Home Guard. It is remarkable, considering the excesses that have been committed and the tribulations that have been suffered in Kenya, not only by the settlers, but by people who have gone out from this country to administer law and order, how very good they are to forget it all and to work towards racial co-operation in the future. There could be no better tribute than that they are doing so to the settlers of Kenya. Incidentally, although I have used it, "settler" is all too often a misleading


term, because these people are frequently just as entitled to be there as anyone else, by race, birth and any other test that one can think of. I pay my tribute to them that throughout this emergency they have behaved as one would expect, like the best sort of British citizen.

6.28 p.m.

Mr. C. R. Hobson: A disappointing feature of the debate is that neither the Secretary of State for the Colonies nor the Minister of State for Colonial Affairs had gauged the proper feelings in the Committee. It was incumbent upon the Secretary of State to give answers in an opening speech from the Treasury Bench to the very serious allegations which have been made by Miss Fletcher. The charges appear to be documented and they have been referred to by the hon. Member for Eton and Slough (Mr. Fenner Brockway). We have not heard a full answer, and if they are not answered we shall have to say that it is a disgrace to British justice. I leave it at that.
I have my own feeling about this business. I believe that answers can be given. I seriously suggest that both right hon. Gentlemen were in duty bound to give the information, after the intervention of my right hon. Friend the Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Bevan).

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: I thank the hon. Member for giving way. He is always scrupulously fair in matters of this kind.
I would certainly have responded to that suggestion if I had thought that it would have expedited the debate and helped the Committee. I wanted to hear the various charges. I hope I shall be able to deal with all of them to the satisfaction of most people. There may be some that I cannot, but I would rather hear them all and deal with them. I trust that this is not my last appearance here; in a week's time I can be subjected to intense cross-examination on any case. I feel that neither I nor the Government of Kenya have anything to hide. I only wanted to hear what all the charges were.

Mr. Hobson: I readily accept the point of view as expressed by the right hon. Gentleman, but I still believe that it was a mistake in Parliamentary tactics. We will leave it at that.
On the general question of Kenya, I should like to see the Committee discuss-

ing this matter with unanimity of purpose. Listening to the speech of the hon. Member for Armagh (Mr. Armstrong), I found myself in complete agreement with every word he said. It was most noticeable that on neither side of the Committee was there a single intervention during that speech, which was based on experience of farming in Kenya.
The most astonishing thing about this beautiful country of Kenya is the resilience of the economy. It is a tribute to the inhabitants of that country, despite the bestial savagery of Mau Mau—now nearing its end, thank God—and also a tribute to the lone farmers, men and women, who were the first to face the onslaught of that terror. It is also a tribute to the loyal Kikuyu and, of course, to the security forces. When speaking about the loyal Kikuyu one cannot forget the horror and tragedy of the Laeri massacre—greater than St. Bartholomew's Eve—of which, I regret to say, very little was mentioned in the popular Press of Britain at that time. No doubt there was a common opinion abroad that Mau Mau was a kind of Boy Scout movement which wanted freedom for Kenya. It was not until the late publication by the Colonial Office of the bestial filth there that there was a full appreciation of the situation.
We have had some very interesting information from the economic point of view today. I was interested to learn that light industry now equals agriculture in terms of the national economy. That is very important because Kenya is not rich in raw materials. I think that there has been a fairly thorough geological survey and that the only important mineral deposit known at the moment is Keiselgore. New cement works and new oil refineries have been started and there is the present construction of seven or eight deep-water berths in the Port of Mombasa. That portrays confidence in the economic future of the Colony.
I wish to ask whether consideration is being given by the Cabinet to the use of Mombasa as an alternative to Trincomalee. That is worthy of consideration. I do not know what arrangements may have been made or what discussion may be taking place, but if Trincomalee is to be left, Mombasa would make an admirable harbour for defence purposes in that part of the Indian Ocean and, eventually, of the Pacific.

Mr. James Johnson: Is my hon. Friend aware that the two Arab members walked out of the Legislative Council and were most uneasy because of the suggestion?

Mr. Hobson: I am not aware of that; it is certainly information to me. I put the point of view forward in reference to the economic development of the port and the hinterland.
Investment taking place in Kenya indicates faith in the future. It has been favoured by the high prices obtained for coffee and tea. There is still a very urgent need for new capital, but before new capital can go to Kenya in the amounts we should desire, political stability has to be presupposed. It is very interesting that as a result of Central African Federation there is political stability in that area. There is no doubt about there being a flow of capital to a far greater extent than when those countries were independent. It also presupposes law and order, and I am glad to say that they are well on the way to achieving that.
When the Minister replies to the debate I should like to hear what is to be done about the Tana Valley development. That would bring many thousands of fertile acres under cultivation. Money would be needed for that. Capital is needed for the development of water and water supply. In Africa, water is often the rarest and most valuable commodity. The problem of Kenya is the problem of Africa. We are jumping 700 years in 70 years—that is the dilemma. It is passing from a tribalised, sub-divided economy to an exchange economy, and that is not very easy for a primitive people to do. There are 40 tribes and 40 different languages. If we were not there to hold the ring, those tribes would fight each other. It is only because we are there that there is peace, let there be no doubt about that.
I cannot understand people who have any real knowledge of the Colony assuming that because there are differences of language and differences of custom we could have a sort of peaceful Switzerland, isolated in that part of Africa. It is not like that. It is not the fault of the inhabitants, but because they have to be brought along, and it is a question of the speed at which they can be brought along. We have nothing to be ashamed of in

our mission in Africa. 1f there had not been British tutelage there would not be talk of self-government today. Those who have farmed there know that the tribes have even to be kept in separate shambas on their farms.
I believe that there are very few detribalised Africans; there may be a few here and there. That brings me to the question of the need for education, above all, of technical education. We do not want to make lawyers and economists; we want to train craftsmen and men who can become farmers. Those are the sort of people lacking there today. There is a great shortage of teachers and that is a cause of difficulty. Not only is there a great shortage of teachers, but also of finance. As we have heard in the admirable speech of the hon. Member for Armagh and speeches by other hon. Members, there is a limit to the extent to which Kenya can be taxed. Already, with the exception of this country, Kenya is paying more in taxation than any other country and it has not got the Welfare State.
I have been at pains to get information about African teachers and African education officers. I find that at present there are 12 African graduates, nine assistant education officers engaged in administrative duties and 30 African district officers. Obviously, great progress has got to be made, but that will take time. I hope that the Government will make that matter their top priority. I am one of those who want to see the African advance. I want to see him fill posts of responsibility.
May I say a few words about trade unionism? I speak as a life-long member of a great trade union—just as my father was a member before me—the Amalgamated Engineering Union, which has members in all parts of Africa, including Kenya. The genuine trade unions in Kenya should be encouraged. Admittedly, it is not always easy to prove the bona fides of some organisations which call themselves trade unions. Their membership is very indeterminate. It is very difficult to get a detailed report of each union and the past is marred by many unions which have been discredited among reasonable Africans.
Having said that on the negative side, there is a much more pleasant picture to draw. In the railways and the docks


there are very efficient African trade unions where the work is being done voluntarily. Local committees and shop stewards' committees are functioning. I have been in the railway shops at Nairobi and in the marine shops at Kisumu. I have seen work done by the big docking firm at Mombassa and I have been present at meetings where Africans and Arabs have sat down together and dealt with grievances as they occurred—and done it intelligently. Questions of "dirty money" and of allowances for travelling to work are being considered in a way to which we are accustomed in this country.
That is the sort of trade unionism which must be encouraged. Where I fall out with some of the white settlers over there and some of their organisations, certainly the most vociferous of them, is on the question of the treatment of genuine trade unions. It is all very well to point to the trade unions which have lapsed for reasons into which we need not go today. After all, that is also the history of the Gold Coast. The T.U.C. has plenty of information in its archives. Nevertheless, there are these genuine trade unions which must be encouraged and to which every help must be given.
Every employer, large or small, could see to it that the rate for the job was paid irrespective of the colour of the person doing it. There is no reason that that should not be done. It is only in that way that advance will be made.
I am also concerned about the position of the white trade unions out there, and when people visit Kenya it is just as well for them to bear in mind that these trade unions, too, ought to be consulted and their views obtained. I recommend anyone visiting Nairobi to go to the Railway Club, controlled by a great trade unionist and an old member of the N.U.R.
These unions have their grouses, one of which is that the railway is a Government concern. As a result, they cannot stand as candidates for elections and are deprived of their political rights. I do not know what some of my right hon. and hon. Friends who are members of the railway organisations in this country would say if that were the position here.
This situation could certainly be considered, and if it were changed it would bring important advantages, because it would bring to the white community a

far more liberal approach to the problems of trade unionism. The general conception of how the Africans should develop would be more liberal, and in my view the future of the country would be much easier if that were done. I hope that in his reply the Colonial Secretary will have something to say about it.
I do not want to speak at great length, because many other hon. Members wish to speak. African representation and the common roll are all matters, I think, where we have to work gradually. They cannot be done in a hurry. As I have said in the House and in Committee before, I am very suspicious of these educated Africans from limited strata who assume to themselves the right to speak as though they have in their destiny the potential rights of millions of their fellow citizens.
I should like to see democracy built up from the bottom. I have always felt that my interests as an old trade unionist were far better held in the hands of the lads who came from the shop floor, whom my hon. Friend the Member for Wednesbury (Mr. S. N. Evans) once described as those people with dirt on their shoes, than in the hands of people who have been over here and obtained education, because there we have the making of the perfect class society. It is far better that democracy should be built up from the bottom.
Considerable help and encouragement must be given to the Africans, particularly at district council level, where excellent work is being done. From these people we shall eventually get members of the Legislative Council who are able to speak as true representatives of the African people and who will be able to take their part in developing Kenya, which is one of the finest countries I have ever had the pleasure to visit.

6.47 p.m.

Mr. Norman Pannell: I fully agree with a great deal said by the hon. Member for Keighley (Mr. Hobson), particularly his comments about the tempo of political advance which is practicable in Kenya. In the short time during which I shall detain the Committee I want to deal with the political situation and the constitutional developments in Kenya.
The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Wakefield (Mr. Creech Jones)


has urged a broad advance on the political front, with universal adult suffrage, a common roll and geographical constituencies, in the true spirit of democracy, as he said. But there is no set pattern of democracy applicable to all territories alike; it has to be adapted to the changing and different conditions of individual countries. As the Coutts Report points out, it is only since 1928 that universal adult suffrage has been in force in this country. That is within the life-time of the great majority of hon. Members and certainly of all right hon. Members. Even in Europe today there are countries which have not universal adult suffrage—for example, Italy, Portugal and Greece. A country which has recently emerged from colonial tutelage. Pakistan, having once adopted universal adult suffrage, has recently suspended it. It is a comparatively new political development, and in my view it is still on trial.
It is a common practice to take West Africa as the pattern of development for all other Colonies, and I think that that is a grave error. Those who, like myself, have spent many years in the West African territories sometimes think that the tempo of political development there has been much too fast. There is no drawing back, of course; we must hope for the best. Nevertheless, it is not necessarily a precedent for other territories, and certainly not for Kenya. The West African territories have homogeneous populations. They are countries which are not suitable for white settlement. They are definitely the black men's countries and they must be regarded in quite a different light from those in which Europeans can and have settled.
In Kenya, where the Europeans have settled and thrived, although they are numerically inferior and vastly outnumbered by the Africans, the contribution which they have made to the economy of the country is out of all proportion to their numbers. The same is true of the Indians in the trading sphere. It would be inadmissible for us to introduce a political set-up which would prejudice the interests of those non-Africans.

Mr. Bevan: We shall not have time later to discuss these complexities, but

surely the historical precedent should be modified. Whilst it is perfectly true that democracy came piecemeal in this country and elsewhere, the real problem today is that these people are living contemporaneously with democracies, which was not the situation in Great Britain in the nineteenth century.

Mr. Pannell: I concede that there is some merit in that argument. At the same time, it must be admitted that the evolution of political development in this country took place over several centuries, and we cannot try to do in these Colonies in a few years what we ourselves took centuries to achieve, although, admittedly, those peoples of whom I am talking will, by following our example, proceed much faster than we did.
The Report of the Royal Commission on East Africa has been mentioned but not at any great length, and I think that I am in order in referring to certain aspects of it. That Report pointed out that Kenya, in common with other East Africa territories, is in great need of economic development, for the improvement and extension of roads and railways, for the improvement of water supplies and, above all, for the improvement of education.
Many millions of pounds will be required for that purpose, as also will be skills which are not to be found in the territory. Indeed, the Report says that the necessary capital will not be found to any degree within the territory itself but must come from outside It emphasises, quite rightly, that Kenya will not attract the capital necessary for its development unless there is a period of political stability; unless that capital is guaranteed against the effects of political upheavals.
It is the policy of this Government, as is was that of its predecessor, to advance the Colonial peoples along the road to self-government. It is also the desire of all parties to advance the standard of living of the backward peoples and there is, I submit, a certain incompatibility there. If we advance too quickly along the political road in Kenya we will certainly prejudice its economic development.
The African who seeks increasing control of his own affairs tends to resent the incursion of European enterprise. He


feels that it limits the possibility of his own control over the affairs of his country. The Dow Report made it quite clear that if, in considering these matters, priority is to be given to the political rather than to the economic consideration it will be very difficult to maintain even the present standard of living, and that it is probable that the disadvantages attendant on a growing population—such as the present malnutrition and other like matters—will be intensified unless we squarely face the fact that economic development must
take priority over political considerations. I think that it is incumbent on us to place this choice clearly before the leaders of African thought. Are they willing to limit their political ambitions in the true interests of the people whom they claim to represent, or are they determined to sacrifice the well-being of the people on the altar of national pride?
The Dow Report also makes criticism of the non-Africans. It says that the non-Africans, and particularly the Europeans, must be prepared for some measure of retreat from their entrenched positions. It urges that in the economic sphere the sole criterion for the appointment of an African to any position of responsibility should be ability. I do not quarrel with that. That should be the true criterion. The Report urges that we should do everything possible to prepare Africans for these positions of high responsibility; and I do not think that anybody will quarrel with that.
It would be fatal, however, if Africans were to be put into positions of responsibility not because they were able to measure up to that responsibility, but merely because they were Africans. In the political sphere, on which the Report does not touch in this connection, it is even more important to see that we have the right men for the right jobs and that we are not so misled by ideological considerations as to place Africans in positions of political responsibility before they are fitted to assume them.
In this Colony, as in others, we have a sacred trust to safeguard the interests of the people and to lead them steadily along the road of social, political and economic development. We must not be misled by false ideologies. Let it not be placed to our charge by future historians

that, in pursuit of a false ideal, we overlooked the compelling circumstances of the situation, and abandoned these people to anarchy as happened fifteen hundred years ago when the Romans abruptly left these shores.
I do not think that that analogy is altogether inapt. We rose from a primitive economy and enjoyed the benefits of Roman rule for many centuries, and the abrupt departure of the Romans led to a period of anarchy and great distress in this country. We have a duty to these Colonies which we must discharge. Let us not be deterred from discharging it by ideological considerations born of false theories and nurtured by misguided sentiment.

6.58 p.m.

Mrs. Eirene White: We have listened with considerable interest to the speech of the hon. Member for Kirkdale (Mr. N. Pannell). Like my right hon. Friend the Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Bevan), being Welsh, I am, I suppose, one of the survivors of the people whom the Romans left behind. Whether or not that is a credit to the Romans, I am not sure.
I should like to follow some of the remarks made by the hon. Member for Kirkdale, partly because I think he put a completely false choice as the one which faces the leaders of African opinion in Kenya. First, however, I should like to draw attention to one or two other matters. Like so many of us, I feel that with the few opportunities we have for debate on this subject we have to take a great deal for granted on the positive side in Kenya and other Colonies. That is not because we are not appreciative of the work which is done there. For example, I was extremely pleased to see recently a very good tribute paid to the workers in the health service in Kenya.
We are also encouraged by the relative buoyancy of the Kenya economy in the circumstances of the last few years, and a very encouraging speech was recently made by the Minister of Finance, Mr. Vasey—who is known to many of us—when he introduced his last budget in Nairobi. On the other hand, one can see that the financial stringencies in this country, and the high rate which has to be paid for capital on the London market, make things even more difficult in a country like Kenya. and further


attention should be given when we discuss the Finance Bill to the question of taxation of companies in these underdeveloped countries. There are matters of this kind which are of extreme importance to a Colony like Kenya, and if I do not go into these questions in great detail this evening it is only because there are other matters for which this is one of the few opportunities for discussion.
I am not going to make any comments on the various charges which have been put very fairly and clearly by my hon. Friend the Member for Eton and Slough (Mr. Fenner Brockway). I would just say to the Minister of State for Colonial Affairs that I have in my hand a letter which has been smuggled out of Manda Island detention camp. For obvious reasons, I cannot tell the right hon. Gentleman how it has come, but it has quite recently come into my possession. I will write to him on the various smaller points of detail, but I should like to draw attention to two matters which are mentioned in this letter, and I will, therefore, read a sentence or two.
This letter is from one of the hard-core prisoners, as they are called, at this camp, and he writes:
We request you please to try to see that our families and relatives are not compelled to write to us requesting us to admit falsely that we have taken Mau Mau oaths in order that we may not be exiled.
This is not the first time by any means that we have heard that pressure is put upon families of prisoners to urge their relatives in these prison camps to confess. I do not believe that that procedure is in the interests of justice or of good government, and I hope that if action can be taken to stop this repugnant practice, it will be taken.
There is another matter of principle which I ought to mention. It was referred to in this letter. That is the request which had been made, so the letter says, that visits might be made by African representatives in the Legislative Council. These people are detainees. They are said to be hard-core prisoners, but they have not been tried in a court of law. It seems to me that they surely have the right of access to African Parliamentary representatives. I am quoting, and I have not checked the allegation. but if

it is true that African representative members do not visit these detainees, then I think that facilities should be given to them to do so and that they should have free access. That is all that I wish to say at this point on this matter of detention camps.
I should like to turn to another subject, which is the constitutional and political development in Kenya which is exciting so much attention at present. As we all know, there are to be elections in September for the European and Asian members, and next spring for the African members. It is a pity that the discussions which are taking place on the composition of the Legislative Council, the franchise, and so on, should take place under the shadow of elections. Being politicians, we all know how difficult it is to be entirely objective when we have to face electors in a few months' time.
I think many of us in the Committee are not happy about the proposals in the Coutts Report for the election of African members. I will say at once that there are several matters in the Government's proposals arising out of the Coutts Report with which we are in agreement. We are very glad that there should be provision for direct secret ballot, for example. Experience in Northern Nigeria has shown some of the difficulties and disadvantages of the kind of indirect election which might be advocated. We are very glad, therefore, that that suggestion was not contemplated in Kenya.
We are, however, very much disturbed by the acceptance in Kenya of the principle not merely of a qualified electorate, but of a multiple vote. I cannot believe that this idea of a multiple vote is one to which we should subscribe. I can understand that arguments can be made in favour of it in a society in which admittedly there are persons at very different stages of development from our own, but surely one must take a statesmanlike view and not consider only the immediate present.
Apart from the undemocratic character of the multiple vote, the major disadvantage is that it so obviously leads to possible manipulation in the future, and, therefore, it is bound to create distrust. It seems to me that, for that reason, the Government of Kenya would have been well advised not to have adoped this idea of a multiple vote. As was pointed


out very cogently by Mr. Mathu in the debate in the Legislative Council in Nairobi, the idea of a multiple vote was not a spontaneous idea of the Africans themselves.
It was put to them by Mr. Coutts, the Commissioner. Mr. Coutts said that having put the idea into the head of the Africans, they were, on the whole, favourably inclined. We all know the situation in which politeness, to say the least of it, might lead people not to argue too vehemently against an idea which obviously the person from the Government wanted them to accept.
I think it is extremely unfortunate that this principle of the multiple vote should have been adopted. I think there are difficulties even about the basic qualifications which have been decided upon, but, as they have been decided upon, I do not want to waste time by going into them in too much detail. However, I should like to underline one or two objections to them.
I should like to quote a sentence from the speech of the Chief Secretary in Kenya, in introducing the Second Reading of the Bill. He was discussing the income and property qualifications. Those are not uncommon in various countries at the beginning of elected representation. But, of course, the Chief Secretary rightly put his finger on one of the great objections to them when he said:
If the standard is to be maintained this figure of £120 per annum may have to be varied in subsequent elections.
Just that has happened in Southern Rhodesia. Various reasons have been given—the fall in the value of money, and so on—but those reasons have not convinced the Africans in Rhodesia, and they certainly will not convince the Africans in Kenya that the real reason for altering the figures has not been to keep them out or to give them fewer votes.
I feel that if we are to have a democratic concept of government, the sooner we reach universal franchise the better. I grant that in conditions in Kenya, especially with the very small number of African representatives in the Legislative Council, and with an electorate which is still largely illiterate, it may not be so easy to decide to have universal franchise with no qualifications for voting other than the requirement to be 21 years

of age. I recognise that, with enormous constituencies and large numbers of electors, it is not easy for the electors to be able to get near enough to the candidate in order to know a great deal about him, and that there might be a kind of demagogy which would be undesirable. But surely the cure for that is to have more African representatives, so that it is possible to have small constituencies where the candidate can be known personally and individually by the electors. That is the real cure—not all these complicated qualifications.
We are asking the people to choose somebody to represent them—somebody whom they can trust to express their point of view. That is all that the democratic process is. When they get to a more developed stage we may say that they must choose between the political ideology and policies of the different parties. That is perfectly true. I would, however, suggest, with all due humility, that a great many of us have been sent to this House of Commons without the people who voted for us knowing very much, if anything at all, about the ideologies and policies for which we stand. A good many of them I am sure have voted, not necessarily for us as individuals, but for the leaders of our parties as individuals, and they have made a personal judgment of the qualities of the people for whom they are voting. That is the essence of it for the great majority of the people even in an advanced country like this.
It seems to me that the sooner we can get adult sufferage in Kenya the better and the more healthy it will be. There will be far fewer causes for suspicion and far fewer opportunities for people who wish to exploit political discontent to do so. There is a happy hunting ground in all this business of complex qualifications for irresponsible politicians to stir up suspicions and unrest.
Having said that, I would like to go one stage further. We have in Kenya not a mono-racial but a multi-racial community. One of the difficulties at present is that the persons elected to the Legislature, by whatever means, are elected solely by members of their own race. We are seeing already what we had every reason to expect, that when it comes to an election the fact that the fate of the


person standing for election has to depend exclusively upon the votes of members of his own race means that, willy nilly, he must place the emphasis in all his electoral appeals upon the exclusive interests of that race.
That is why we got the speech of Michael Blundell, at Nakuru, last March, which has aroused so much disturbance and distress among his colleagues of other races in Kenya. Michael Blundell felt himself obliged to make that speech. I believe myself that he is a strong enough man not to have been obliged to say some of the things which he did say at Nakuru and that it is a great pity that he felt he had to put on record commitments which I think will prove very dangerous to the future to racial harmony in Kenya.
But one can recognise the facts of political life. A man has to be elected to the Legislature to survive at all. Therefore, I submit that particularly now that there are elected Members as Ministers who must be responsible for the welfare of the country as a whole and not merely of their own community, it is essential that we should proceed as soon as possible to some form of common roll. Unfortunately, one of the things to which Michael Blundell has committed himself is to oppose any form of common roll. That, I think, is fatal in Kenya, because until we get a situation in which there is the possibility of Ministers, in particular, but also of other Members, being elected by the franchise of all races it will be quite impossible for them to do other than play up to the extremists of their own race. It cannot be otherwise, if they are to survive at all.
Therefore, it seems to me that we must accept these facts of political life and work towards meeting them. I would suggest that while at present a universal common roll would be unrealistic, we should consider that side by side with communal representation, which I think should be on adult suffrage for all within their own communities, there should be some provision for additional people elected by the franchise of all.
To that additional franchise at this stage I would not myself object to having qualifications of property, education and income, all reasonably high. In fact, if we adopted the Coutts suggestion for a common roll I would not object to it. I

think that then we would have the possibility of a far healthier political development and give genuine multi-racial political expression in Kenya a chance of success.
Something of this kind must be adopted soon—we have not much time; time is against us not for us. I would have wished that it had been adopted before there had been any election of African members. I think that it is a grave mistake not to have done something now if we are to have direct election of African members. The moment we have these directly elected African members they will be accused of inconsistency if they support a common roll and they will have to regard themselves as battling directly for their own communities. There will be a hardening of the communal position, much harder than it is now, when only Europeans and Asians are elected.
I feel that it is urgent that attention should be given to this and that one should show some political courage and imagination. I believe that we in this House of Commons who, after all, stand above the battle, should try to help the people in Kenya who are so directly involved in their own personal political fortunes that it is very difficult for them to be objective in this matter. I think, therefore, that initiative and encouragement should really come from this House of Commons and that we should urge politicians in Kenya of all sections and of all communities to sit back and consider how best they can meet the situation which I have tried to describe.
They are all, I was going to say, paying lip-service, but many of them are paying very much more than lip-service to the idea of multi-racial Government. Most of them are sincere in hoping that it will come about, though, of course, some openly disagree. But hope is not enough; we must find the correct means. I think that if we have at least a proportion of the members responsible to the community as a whole there will be a chance of real political progress in Kenya. The plea which I make today is that we should not be satisfied with the present proposals and that we should realise that time is against us. We should urge our friends in Kenya of all races seriously to consider proposals on the lines that I have suggested.

7.18 p.m.

Major Patrick Wall: I hope that the hon. Lady for Flint, East (Mrs. White) will forgive me if I do not follow her in her well reasoned and objective speech, although I shall probably deal later on with one or two points she raised.
I should like to begin by referring to other points of view which have been expressed from the benches opposite, particularly the accusations which have been made the main subject of this debate, the statements made by Miss Fletcher. I have no particular knowledge of this lady or of the truth or otherwise of her accusations, but, as an average sort of person, it does strike me that if this lady, with her high qualifications, is of the stuff that Florence Nightingale was made of, as is alleged, it is very strange that she did not take the trouble to represent these matters strongly to the Government of Kenya, or, when she came to this country, to my right hon. Friend.

Mr. Paget: She did.

Mr. Hale: This has been said time after time in the hon. and gallant Gentleman's absence.

Major Wall: I know that hon. Members opposite have disputed these facts, but are they really alleging that my right hon. Friend is trying to muzzle this lady? 1t seems to me that she did have these opportunities, and it was not necessary for her to make all these accusations in a newspaper.

Mr. Hale: My hon. Friend the Member for Eton and Slough (Mr. Fenner Brockway) has the documents showing that she had written to people in charge of these detention camps. She made all these complaints and went on making them until, when the innovation she herself had introduced ceased, she was forced to resign. She could not do much more than that.

Major Wall: I disagree. There are other points of view. I would remind the House of an article printed in The Times a few days ago which referred to the charges of the lady in question and to a letter from the Secretary of the Christian Council of Kenya, and a gentleman who represents the Friends' Service Council in Kenya. It states that they wrote a letter to the Friends' Service

Council in London saying that articles written by Miss Fletcher contain
'Striking inconsistencies.' They add: 'It would appear that she has picked up odd scraps of gossip and remarks thrown out by European officials in moments of exasperation, and has quoted them as if they were typical of the general attitude.'
I quote that to show that there are two points of view. No doubt the Secretary of State will clear the matter up later on.
Reference has been made, particularly by the hon. Member for Eton and Slough (Mr. Fenner Brockway), to these accusations and charges. Here again, it does seem to me very surprising that the House should have been kept quite a long time while the hon. Gentleman read out details of these charges, with the names, addresses and numbers of persons, when, if the hon. Gentleman had wanted immediate action taken, it would have been much better for him to have gone straight away to consult the Secretary of State, taking his proofs with him in his hand.

Mr. Hale: All this has been said twice already.

Major Wall: The trouble about this kind of charge is that it receives such undue publicity. It does great harm both in Kenya and in this country, because to a person who is not very interested in East Africa, it pictures the East African territory as being subject to a reign of terror, which even hon. Gentlemen opposite holding the most extreme views would not suggest. It disguises the good part of the picture, the loyalty of the African during the Mau Mau rebellion, particularly the loyalty of the Christian Kikuyu—loyalty not only to the Government, but, what is more important, loyalty to their Creator. It disguises the courage of the farmers, to which tribute has been paid by hon. Gentlemen on the benches opposite. It disguises, or tends to disguise, the background of these events in Kenya.
We have heard of a large number of people being detained, and of a large number of people who have been hanged. Surely, the reason for this lies in the Emergency Regulations, and no one, I imagine, would suggest that the extreme penalty has been exacted without trial. Surely, it is the duty of administrators in the Colony to fulfil the law, and those Emergency Regulations are part of the


law which, together with the loyalty of the Africans and the courage of farmers and settlers, have enabled the emergency to be got under control.
We tend to forget these things. We tend to forget also that the emergency has done one good thing, in that it has speeded up the development of racial partnership. I know that a large number of people in this country felt when the former Colonial Secretary produced his plan that the more extreme European opinion in Kenya and in other territories in East Africa would say it was impossible to make it work and would do their best to frustrate it. Now, in this House, we all speak of advancing from that plan. Surely, that is the kind of thing to underline, rather than the wild accusations that have been made.
The Coutts Report has been referred to. I do not want to discuss it in detail. There are, however, two points I would refer to. First of all, it will enfranchise 60 per cent. of the loyal, adult African population. That is surely a step forward. Secondly, there is the question of the additional vote, which has been referred to already by the hon. Lady the Member for Flint, East. I would merely say that it does ensure that the more responsible people in the community have a larger stake in it, which I think she will agree is a good thing.

Mrs. White: But, surely, if that principle applies at all, it should apply to all communities, irrespective of any such qualifications.

Major Wall: I would agree with the hon. Lady; possibly it has an even wider application than merely in Kenya. However, I do not want to enter into that discussion now.
We must look forward to the time, which may soon come, when the African will have a larger representation, both in the Legislative Council and among the Ministers. But, though I agree with the hon. Lady that time is not on our side, I believe that there is a danger in too much speed. All races are essential to Kenya; the three races have a vital contribution to make to that country. The great danger is fear, fear of the Europeans that they will be swamped by Africans. fear of the Africans that they may be

exploited by Europeans, and the fear of Africans that the Indian middleman will take their trade from them. Fear can only be eliminated by time. The races must learn that each has a contribution to make. If we try to speed things up too much, we may increase rather than diminish that fear.
I am sure that hon. Members on both sides, whatever they may feel about the Capricorn Africa Society, would wish well of the convention which is to take place this month in Africa, with the object of a society with a common patriotism and a common citizenship. But the Capricorn Society does emphasise the danger of too much speed, and it stresses that the vote must be earned and must be used responsibly by all races, not only by Africans. I am sure that hon. Members on both sides of the House will go a long way in agreeing to those principles.
I do not want to spend too much time on the political aspects of this matter, because the vast majority of Africans in Kenya are not interested in, or do not understand, the political side. What is far more important to them, and, to my mind, the most important development since the emergency was got under control, is the consolidation of land which has taken place in the Kikuyu reserves and elsewhere. This has been referred to already, but I make no excuse for referring to it again. Miss Fletcher has been referred to on numerous occasions, but I, personally, think that land consolidation is far more important a subject for the future of Africa, and should receive more frequent consideration.
It has been possible to make a start in the Kikuyu reserves, because of the Emergency Regulations; the expropriation of land of Mau Mau leaders has enabled villagisation to take place and put Africans in a position voluntarily to agree to the consolidation of these small lots of land spread all over the reserve. I am told on good authority that this consolidation of land into plots of from half an acre to twenty acres is doing three things. It is producing—if you like—the African capitalist, the fellow who employs two or three people to farm some twenty acres. It is enabling farm planning to take place and to be effective; and, what is more important, it is making it possible for the African to realise that farm planning is essential and effective. Further, it will, I


hope, lead to the establishment of cooperatives in the area; they are vitally important, particularly in the running of these smaller half to two acre plots.

Mr. J. Johnson: While in no way dissenting from what the hon. and gallant Gentleman is saying about land consolidation, I would ask him whether he is aware that we must go very carefully here, because the Luo peoples have, on two occasions in the last week, rebelled—if I may use that term—and have had meetings dispelled, particularly at Mombasa.

Major Wall: I am glad that the hon. Gentleman has raised that point. I did say that these matters had been done under the Emergency Regulations, but that they were voluntarily entered into. I think he would agree that, as the success of this scheme is apparent to the African, other tribes will wish voluntarily to follow. In fact, there is a danger of some tribes saying, "The Kikuyu are doing pretty well out of this and something more ought to be done for us."
I come now to the important subject of African administrators. I am sure the House will agree that the future of Kenya depends upon the African administrators even more than upon the African politician. All hon. Members of the House who had the privilege in the last few days, or last year, of taking these gentlemen round the House of Commons will agree that they have reached a very high standard. There is, however, one point I wish to make. I am told that African administrators have a lower standard of housing in the cities and towns of Kenya than their European opposite numbers of the same rank. I would suggest that that is wrong. It may be that it will take time to put it right, but surely it is essential to the multi-racial objective that all people employed by the Government in positions requiring education and a real sense of responsibility are given the same standard of accommodation.
I believe that we have a long way to go, but that we have made a good start. Some may say that Tanganyika is further ahead than Kenya, and may feel that the object to be aimed at is that parity between the races enjoyed in the Legislative Assembly of Tanganyika. But, surely, the main fact is that ten years ago very few people in this country would have

prophesied that Kenya would have gone as far along the road to multi-racial partnership as it has. We must remedy injustice where we find it, no matter to which side of the House we belong; it is our duty as Members of Parliament. In doing so, however, we must be very careful not to undermine confidence either in the Administration of the Territory in question or in the integrity of this country.
Our propaganda in putting over the successes we have achieved in East Africa have been very poor. We are criticised mainly from two sources, by the Soviet bloc, whose record of forced labour hardly entitles it to contribute any criticism, and by Egypt, in the "Voice of the Arabs." Egypt claims to have had a civilisation for five thousand years, whereas the civilisation in Kenya, apart from the coastal strip, is probably only 150 years old, and yet the people of Egypt do not enjoy a much higher standard of living than the people of Kenya. I am talking, of course, of the natives or the working classes. Criticism from Egypt also, therefore, comes very badly. We can be proud of the progress which has been made in East Africa. We still have a long way to go, but I believe that the success of the experiment of inter-racial partnership is of vital importance, not only to this country and to Africa, but to the whole of the Commonwealth.

7.32 p.m.

Mrs. Barbara Castle: Every Member of the Committee will deeply regret that it has been 15 months since we have had a full-scale debate on Kenya. It is clear from the trend of the debate that there are so many points to be raised and which ought to be raised that, obviously, we cannot cover them adequately in the time available to us.
When the hon. and gallant Member for Haltemprice (Major Wall)—and we would support him in this—refers to the need for establishing common patriotism and citizenship in Kenya, we must recognise that it is impossible to hope to progress towards this goal until we have begun by establishing the status of the African as a human being. That is why it is important today to give priority to the allegations made by Miss Eileen Fletcher and to their implications concerning the status of the African as a


human being in Kenya. All the rest follows from that.
It is no good having the land consolidation or the economic progress which, we freely admit, is taking place; it is no good having constitutional reforms and no good hoping for an advance towards multi-racial government unless we clear up once and for all the question of whether we can say that in Kenya today the Administration and those who serve it are really treating the African as a human being, with the equality which should go with that. It is because I am not satisfied on this that I want to return to the points which were made so brilliantly by my hon. Friend the Member for Eton and Slough (Mr. Fenner Brockway).
I have not met Miss Eileen Fletcher. I have deliberately refrained from meeting her, although I have read with interest what she has written, because, as hon. Members know, I have recently been to Kenya and visited many of the camps to which she referred. I wanted to be able to give my own first-hand experience without being accused of any kind of collusion with Miss Fletcher.
The Colonial Secretary has asked us to put before him any kind of evidence to show whether Miss Fletcher's allegations, in general or in particular, are fair. What is equally important with the precise accusations she has made about individual cases is the general atmosphere in Kenya particularly on the rehabilitation side, in the administration of the detention camps, in the administration of justice and in the general treatment of the African as a human being.
I want to let the Committee know what my experience was. It has been said by more than one hon. Member opposite that if Miss Eileen Fletcher had come back so infused with moral indignation about what she had seen, she could have gone privately to the Colonial Secretary. I do not want to be unfair to the right hon. Gentleman, but some of the Answers we get in the House to Questions which we put to him, in good faith, do not encourage us to go to him with these little problems.

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: Perhaps if the hon. Lady came to see me personally she might get a more favourable reaction.

Mrs. Castle: I do not know whether I shall be making any breach of etiquette, but I intended to tell the Committee, not from malice but as important corroborative evidence, of a private conversation I had with the Colonial Secretary before going to Kenya. I frankly admit that he was very charming—he can be an extremely charming man—but what was important to me was what he told me would be my treatment when I went to Kenya.
It is extremely interesting that when Members on this side visit Kenya, and go with anxiety but are accused of going with prejudice, they make reports on their return which are a great deal more circumscribed and moderate than those we have had from Miss Eileen Fletcher. a full-time official who was employed inside the Administration. That is a great reflection on the desire of hon. Members, on both sides, to report fairly what they have seen.
There is, however, another explanation, and this, I think, is the answer to hon. Members opposite who have been saying, "We have been round the camps but we saw nothing wrong." That answer is that it is extraordinarily difficult for a Member of the House of Commons, when visiting Kenya in an official capacity, to have the same opportunities that Miss Eileen Fletcher had to get at the facts.
Now, I come to my conversation with the Colonial Secretary before I went. I informed him I was going—I gathered he might find out I was there if I did not tell him—and I said that because of my anxiety I would make certain inquiries into the administration of justice and the operation of detention camps. Personally, the right hon. Gentleman was extremely charming, but at the end of a pleasant 10 minutes this is what he said to me, "I must warn you that when you get there, the Governor will not feel it possible to allow you to talk to any detainee alone, and in this I must support him." Being a woman, I do not always jump all my hurdles at once, so I just let that one lie until I got there.

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: The hon. Lady is recalling for the benefit of the Committee a conversation we had some months ago. To the best of my recollection, I said that should the Governor refuse to allow her to see any detainee it was no good


appealing to me to over-rule the Governor, for I would support him completely.

Mrs. Castle: We will not argue very much about it, but I rather gained the impression that the Colonial Secretary was preparing to support the Governor not only in retrospect, but in anticipation. That is the difference.
I did not go to Kenya primarily in my capacity as a Member of the House but, as everybody knows, on behalf of the Daily Mirror, thus getting rather more freedom than an official delegation would get. On my arrival, I saw all the appropriate official people and signed all the appropriate books, remembering my good manners if nothing else. I was then duly warned that I should only be allowed to go into camps with permits, that I should be accompanied on all my visits by Mr. Gregory Smith, an ex-Provincial Commissioner who is now an adviser to the Prisons Department, that I must travel in official transport and go with official interpreters, and that I should not be allowed to see anybody alone.
That was the beginning of a very long battle. My right hon. Friend the Member for West Bromwich (Mr. J. Dugdale) has said that Miss Eileen Fletcher had remarked on the way in which, at certain detention camps, the wool was pulled over my eyes. I am perfectly well aware of that, because I had sources of information while I was there which I do not intend to disclose to this Committee, because I do not want to get anybody sacked. I knew that the wool-pulling operation was being organised.
So I began a long, three weeks' battle to obtain what I thought were the essential facilities if I was to do the job properly at all, and that was to be able to talk in privacy to the people,who were detained. It is really no good Members of Parliament going along, surrounded by a horde of officials, and with the camp commandant in charge summoning the chaps before him, and saying, "Now talk to the hon. Lady, and tell her the truth." Really, we are not children. That is not the way to get at the facts.
I remember that the first battle was at.Athi River Camp—

Mr. F. Harris: If the hon. Lady did not want to have anybody present, and if

she does not speak Swahili, how would she have been able to converse with the detainees?

Mrs. Castle: There were plenty of African people who said, "Do not go with an official interpreter. Take one of us, because the detainees will not be able to speak in front of an official interpreter." I had plenty of interpreters ready and anxious to do the job for me, but, of course, I was not allowed to use them. Not only was I not allowed to have a private interpreter and had to have the official interpreter from the Prisons Department, but for a long time I was not allowed to talk to detainees alone at all.
I remember going round Athi River Camp, in the middle of this battle, with the very charming gentleman in charge. who took me on a conducted tour. When I was outside one of the compounds, I said, "I want to go inside the compound and talk to the men," because I knew that this facility had been given to previous visitors, not Members of Parliament, to the Colony. I was told that that could not be done, and I asked, "Why not?" I had already told the Governor that I wanted to talk to people alone. I was told by this officer, "We cannot allow any woman inside the compound." I said, "This is a new one. I must remind you that I am here not as a woman, but as a Member of Parliament," to which the commandant replied, "I am afraid that I can only use the evidence of my eyes."
It is true that, at the end of that three weeks' battle, I did bring the Governor round to the point of granting me these facilities, but it was really very childish of them to refuse in the first place, because I was very anxious only to get at the facts. When I did get the facilities that I wanted, then I often found evidence which corroborated some of the things which the officials has said, rather than the opposite. At Ranzani Camp, for example, where I did see the prisoners to whom I referred in my last speech on Kenya in this House, facilities were freely given me by Captain Terry, the Commandant, of whom I formed a high opinion as a man of very high character. This kind of attempt at secrecy really does not pay.
In the meantime, I went to the Kamiti Women's Camp, to which Miss Fletcher has referred so fully. I had had many


complaints from Europeans and Africans about conditions in this camp, and I did make a fighting effort to go there, because I wanted to know more about the condition of some of the detainees. I wanted to take with me an African lawyer—the only African lawyer in practice in Kenya today—who had a client in the camp and who had right of access.
If I had the time to tell the Committee about the amusing game, in the best Edgar Wallace style, which we had to play to try to get into the camp together, hon. Members would think they were listening to a fairy tale. All I can tell them is that I was told by one of the officials in the Prisons Department—and a lot of things are said privately by them which they would not and dare not say publicly—that, so terrified was this camp over the coming invasion of an African lawyer and a woman Member of Parliament, three Europeans were posted at the gate for three days to keep us out if we turned up. I was told, "Everyone from the Governor downwards is trying to keep her out."
I was also told, by someone whose evidence I accept as being thoroughly reliable, that the whole staff of the Kamiti Women's Camp was called into the Commandant's office before my visit and told, "This woman is coming on some inquiry. You know what they are like. Keep your mouths shut. When she asks questions, answers only 'Yes' or 'No'." This is the kind of atmosphere in which a Member of Parliament has to try to establish the truth, and it is a stupid waste of time, because even on official figures there is enough evidence available to give us cause for serious anxiety about the atmosphere in which some of these camps are run.
When I finally went in, accompanied by my African lawyer, I was forcibly separated from him at the gate. He was shown into one room while I was taken into the official's room and saw the officials separately. I put certain questions and I received the official answers, and the official answers themselves corroborated a great deal of what Miss Fletcher has written. They corroborate the fact that among the 1,159 women convicts on the prison side of the camp, 66 per cent. of these women were imprisoned for pass offences, and I shall come back to this point in a moment. I think this

is a figure which this Committee ought to ponder as being of very great importance on this whole question of prison administration.
On the other side of the prison—the detention camp side—there were 1,733 detainees with their children, a number of whom, I was told by the officials, had been transferred from the prison side. All their sentences had been completed, and they had been transferred on the word of the woman rehabilitation officer who is in charge of the rehabilitation side of the camp.
These women were being arrested in the streets of Nairobi because they had not got a pass, or they had been arrested somewhere else for having tried to see their husbands without a pass, or because for some other reason they did not possess a pass. They had not been arrested for a crime, they had not been arrested because they had been found to be consorting with Mau Mau, but had been arrested simply on the fact, with which we are so familiar in South Africa, that they had not got a pass.
They are taken before the District Commissioner's Court, given sentences and are sent to Kamiti women's prison, and when they have finished their sentences, somebody on the detention side of the camp, without any training in prison administration—an amateur—can come along and say, "Oh, no; these women cannot be let out; they must be transferred to the detention side until we say they are fit to go."
I received a visit after my return, from someone whose name I cannot give, for obvious reasons, and who told me that the procedure was even meaner than that, because what happened was that a woman rounded up for not having a pass often had a fine levied upon her. She obviously would not have the money with which to pay, and had to be put in prison while her friends raised the money. When they had raised it and paid the fine, she was then transferred to the detention camp side and the fine was not even repaid. That was described to me by a European official as a "typically mean trick."

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: Could the hon. Lady give me, either in a letter when she writes to me, or when she comes to see me, a single factual illustration of this particular and very big charge?

Mrs. Castle: I can only say to the right hon. Gentleman that he must take my word for it. He will appreciate the difficulty in which I am placed. I do not like this cloak and dagger stuff any more than he does, but it is his procedure that has forced us to adopt it.
That is why we in this Committee ask for an independent inquiry. If we have not official information the right hon. Gentleman cannot complain if we have to come to him with hearsay information, even that given us by officials, who take their jobs in their hand to come to see us privately. They do that because they say, "Do not 'phone the camp because every telephone is tapped, and they are spying." I can say only that the Committee and the right hon. Gentleman must take my word for it. I cannot prove it without getting somebody into trouble, and I do not intend to do that.
If the right hon. Gentleman does not like taking my word for it, there is a remedy open to him. As has been said from the Opposition Front Bench today already, what we ask for is an independent inquiry, sent from this country into the running of the camps, into the operation of the Emergency Powers, into the use of detention orders, into the treatment of detainees. If that body of inquiry, with the full authority of this Committee behind it, with full powers to see people privately, even to command them to appear to give evidence were sent out, we might be able to establish the facts. Failing that, the right hon. Gentleman's only remedy, if he does not want to accept my statements, is to call me a liar, or by some other term more appropriately Parliamentary.
I discovered some interesting figures about releases. I discovered them from officials in that room. The right hon. Gentleman can corroborate them with Mr. Gregory Smith, my guardian angel during those three weeks. I asked what the rate of releases was. I was told that there had been only 137 releases from the camp in the previous 15 months and that new detentions were being made at the rate of 100 per month. That was last November, when we were told that the worst of Mau Mau was over and the crux of the emergency had past. Yet here were the round-ups going on at the rate of 100 a month, and the releases, about which I have an official

signal here, which Mr. Gregory Smith got for me, and which the Colonial Secretary may see if he would like to, were only 137 in the previous 15 months. We must have our sense of proportion wrong if at this stage of the emergency that state of affairs can be defended.
I asked about the children in the camp. I was told frankly by the officials that there had been an alarmingly high death rate of children of three years of age and under. The figures came to me through the agency of Mr. Smith. From January to October last year, among the 400 children of three years and under in the camp, the deaths averaged 20 a month. They told me they agreed it was a shocking figure. I want to give them full credit for that. They also pointed out that by October the figure had started to drop and was down to six, and they hoped it would go lower.
In the private talk with the prison officials to which I have already referred, I asked what was the explanation for the high death rate at the beginning of the year and of its having dropped. I was told, quite simply, "Now there is a doctor in the camp who really cares." The doctor had begun to demand medicines and proper diet. Somebody came along who cared. There are many officials in Kenya who do care. I met a number of them—such as probation officers, and that wonderful woman, the Red Cross worker, Miss Priest, with whom I went round the villages. These are devoted people—dedicated workers. We cannot pay too high a tribute to those individuals, but is it not wrong that the fate of thousands of human beings should depend on the accident of a person getting into the right job, when things have been so bad for so long?
I would confirm again what Miss Eileen Fletcher said about the living conditions in the camp. They are bad. I went into one hut in which 24 women had to live and sleep. It measured 30 ft. by 11 ft. They slept on the bare ground with a blanket over them, often with their child by their side.
I was told, "These conditions are probably better than those they enjoy outside." That is a very severe indictment of us. That is not very much to our credit. Let us face it. In Kenya, poverty is the rule and not the exception, and the Europeans tend to become


hardened, and to say of the Africans, "They live like animals. They are better off inside." That is said by individuals who genuinely believe it.
I had a talk through an official interpreter with some of the women. Six had been there three years, three for two years. One, whose name I have, and which I will tell the right hon. Gentleman if he wants to know it, said to me, "I took the Mau Mau oath and I confessed, and I have recorded my repentance talk. I have been here three years, and I should like to get out."
I was told by the officials there that only one detainee had asked to appeal in the last two years. I asked the woman, "Have you not appealed?" She replied, "No, because I appealed when I was at Athi River, and I was told it was too early to appeal, and I have not appealed since."
I say in all seriousness to the Colonial Secretary that, whatever may have been excusable at the height of the emergency, the stage has now been reached where we need a thorough review from outside of the whole of the necessity for these detentions and of the spirit in which these places are being operated. There are many people in the Rehabilitation Department in Kenya who are doing an excellent job. I formed a very high opinion of Mr. Asquith, a devoted and dedicated man, who is in charge as a permanent official. However, nobody denies that the living conditions in the prisons and camps are bad.
It cannot be denied, because it is revealed in the Annual Report of the Prisons Department. I have a copy here. The Colonial Secretary knows as well as I do what is in it. It says:
Prisons face heavy task of improvement.
that prisoners have been sleeping in tents and aluminium huts to relieve overcrowding. It admits that
overcrowding continued throughout the year.
Incidentally, in this Report is full corroboration of what my hon. Friend the Member for Eton and Slough said about the use of leg-irons. It says:
Leg-irons were used as a means of restraint in 2,832 cases.
Here is something else that the Report says:

The general lowering of recruiting standards made necessary by increasing difficulty in obtaining recruits, and the urgency of the situation, inevitably resulted in warders having to be posted to stations with inadequate training.
I was told that there is no real prison service in Kenya in the British sense of the term. There is no one high up in the department with real prison experience in this country. On the prison side of Kamiti Women's Camp there is no real rehabilitation, no teaching of the women how to keep their children clean, and no training of them for jobs to which they could go. They are, in fact, herded like cattle.
Recruitment, I admit, has been a great problem, but if there has been difficulty because of shortage of staff and because of overcrowding is it not all the more imperative that we should review the whole policy of the detention orders? Is it not all the more reason why we should review the necessity of the pass system? I ask that because, for many Africans, family life is being broken up completely, by the very fact that the men are kept in Nairobi while the women are sent back to the villages. That is why venereal disease is on the increase, as I have said before. When a man wants to see his wife, a simple, human necessity, he has to get a pass.
I say, in full recognition of what I am saying, that we are beginning to get in Kenya at this moment the continuation now of controls which were introduced for emergency purposes, purely for the sake of control. It is part of the attitude of "baasskap," white domination, to which Father Huddleston referred as it is in South Africa, in his very moving book.
I should like the Colonial Secretary to read what Father Huddlestone had to say about the pass system and how, before we know where we are, if we are not careful, the pass system is introduced, not for security, but because it is the symbol of white control. As Father Huddlestone points out in his book on the dangers of the pass system:
It is not the crime that matters; it is control. And to have that control, why, that is proof of supremacy—that is baasskap'.
There are many Europeans in Kenya who do not realise how instinctive this has become with them and how there has to be a conscious effort of will to recognise that the African has a right to


move freely in an African country, unless there is the most severe emergency which makes it necessary to enforce control.
My accusation here is not primarily about the past. Heaven knows, what Miss Fletcher has said about the past has been fully borne out from all kinds of reputable sources, but I am concerned about the present and the future. It is not mud from the past that we on this side of the Committee are bringing up, it is the urgent problem of the present. The accusation that I make is that we are now in danger in Kenya of continuing controls for control's sake, and if we do that multi-racialism is dead before we start. [Laughter.] Hon. Members opposite laugh, but I will give an example. This came to me from the Acting General-Secretary of the Kenya Federation of Labour, Mr. Ochwada, who said that many Africans complain to him about the heartless way the pass system is operated and is being used for purposes other than security.
He gave the name of one, Wambugu Maina, who was painting a white man's house. The white man came home and objected to the work that he had done. They had an argument, in the course of which the painter said, "If you do not like my work, give me the sack at the end of the month." The white employer had a different idea. He took the painter to the District Commissioner's office, asked the painter for his pass and then went to the Labour Office with the pass book. When he came out, the pass book had been cancelled, which meant that the man's right to work in Nairobi had been taken from him and he would be forced to go back to the reserve.
The painter, who was a member of the Building Workers' Union, took the matter up with the Kenya Federation of Labour, which went to the Labour Commissioner in the Kenya Government and said, "This is not the way to treat one of our members". He said, "I cannot do anything about it. Go to the district officer. He has the last word." The district officer said, "I am satisfied that it is contrary to the public interest for this man to continue to work in Nairobi." I say quite seriously that this kind of thing is going on where controls are used in the name of security but really for control's sake.
There is so much that I should like to say and so little time in which to say it, but I should like to give another illustration. We have heard about the policy of villagisation. It can be a good policy to the benefit of the African if it is intended to get him into these village units in order to provide communal services. Although the villagisation policy started in the worst possible conditions, because it had to start as a security measure for rounding up Africans for their own protection against Mau Mau and to prevent their giving help, nevertheless it can be transformed to good purpose if the emphasis now changes.
We know that Mau Mau is practically stamped out. The Minister of State for Colonial Affairs told us so today, but as recently as May new Emergency Powers were introduced by the Kenya Government called the Emergency (Kikuyu, Embu and Meru Villages) Regulations, 1956. The powers given under those regulations to administrative officers of control over African lives is absolutely scandalous. The regulations are dated Ist May of this year when, we are told, only five Mau Mau leaders were still alive and on the loose. The regulations give the administrative officer power to
… direct that any person or any class of persons … shall reside in a specified village …
and that they shall not leave that village without permission. They give power to direct where Africans must graze their cattle and give power to confine Africans to any areas the administrative officer thinks necessary.
In the current issue of "Kenya Newsletter", the official hand-out, we are told that this is part of the tight against Mau Mau. I challenge that and say that it is the continuance of controls for control's sake. If we are not careful, we shall be no better than the Russians. I read in the Observer last Sunday a powerful article about labour camps in Russia, which we have all criticised in the House of Commons. I read how at last there is an easing up in the camps for political prisoners there, but as I read the article I thought that there were striking parallels with the situation in Kenya where people are detained for political reasons without trial and are under compulsion to do a great deal of the construction work about which we now boast. Many of the villages have


been built by the forced labour of women who had to neglect their children, many of whom have died from malnutrition because of the forced labour which their mothers had to carry out. The position has been eased now, but we have done this and forced labour is still going on in this way, though on a reduced scale.
I went to Mwea to see the development scheme which is being carried out there to settle Africans on 40,000 acres where it is hoped to grow rice. The canals are being dug by 1,800 detainees from two nearby camps. Is there not a tremendous bias in favour of keeping these detainees in detention until that work is done? What difference is there between that and the Russian labour camps? These people are political prisoners. I could not help being struck by the final paragraph in the Observer article on the Russian camps which said that
certain groups of prisoners regarded as specially dangerous were detained in special isolation camps
which the writers called
annihilation camps
What else is Manda Island, to which the "irreconcilables" in Kenya are sent? For all we know, it may be an annihilation camp. It is an isolated camp, surrounded by swamps from which, I was told, these "black irreconcilables" cannot escape because they would be eaten up by crocodiles. Has any hon. Member been to that camp? There are camps in Kenya into which the Nairobi Press is not admitted. Is it not time that an independent body of inquiry from this country visited them? Are we satisfied that this is all that we can do about the situation in Kenya? Is this all that we can do about the so-called irreconcilables? Are we going to adopt the Russian method of keeping the hard-core irreconcilables in an isolated camp indefinitely?
The emergency is at an end and we now must have a positive, constructive attitude for the future. We must substitute government by consent for government by control, and that involves a review of all the arguments that Colonel Young put forward about putting the police on an independent basis and making, as he wanted to make them. the African constables and police force the servants of the people. I remember that Colonel Young said, "I want a police

service, not a police force." Lies have been told about Colonel Young in Kenya and in the House of Commons. It has been suggested that the Africans do not support him. That is not true. I have read speeches by Mr. Mathu, the African representative in the Legislative Council, expressing the distress which Africans felt when Colonel Young resigned and the feeling that something was being covered up which ought not to be covered up.
We must have a new feeling for the future. When we on this side of the Committee express anxiety we are not expressing prejudice, but the belief that there is a new opportunity in Kenya which will come to fruition only if we have the courage to act with vision and give expression to the kernel of multiracialism, which must be government by consent and the 'recognition that the Africans are human beings with fundamental human rights as people.

8.10 p.m.

Mr. Frederic Harris: The hon. Lady the Member for Blackburn (Mrs. Castle) is a very good speaker indeed, but unfortunately there is no time to follow the points she has been making. She is, however, very quick to forget that Kenya has been going through nearly four years of emergency when some 2,000 people have been murdered. Had she visited Kenya a year or two ago, when conditions were as bad as they then were, she might have had a different story to tell this evening.
Her speech was typical of the speeches which have been made on these very important matters affecting Kenya from the other side of the Committee. But for a few exceptions, she gave no praise at all of any note to all those who have done a first-rate job in restoring peace and law and order to Kenya under the most trying conditions. It was typical of the speech we heard from the right hon. Member for Wakefield (Mr. Creech Jones) that his thoughts were concentrated on the I per cent. of the population which has been against law and order and not on the other 99 per cent. of the population of Kenya, Europeans, Asians and Africans alike, whose safety and security for their future and, indeed, whose whole future is dependent on what we, the British, do in Kenya.
I should like to join with him in regard to one important point he made to the Colonial Secretary in his reference to the police, when he said that the police should be independent of the Administration. Anyone who has studied this subject in detail will fully agree with that view. It is wrong in principle that the police should be controlled as they are by the Administration. They should be free to get on with the job which we should expect them to be able to do, just as in the case of the police in this country.
I ask the right hon. Member for Wake- field to read his words tomorrow in HANSARD, especially his reference to immigration. I tried to interrupt him, because the inference which I got from what he said was that he would strictly control the immigration into Kenya of British people. If that is his view, it is a rather new policy coming from the Opposition. Would he do the same thing with regard to Africans coming to this country from Kenya? Does he propose to restrict Africans coming to this country as well as the Europeans going to Kenya to help to develop the country?
The Minister of State especially referred to the benefits to come to the economy with the continued development of Kenya and the fact that Kenya is mainly dependent on its agriculture. We can all subscribe to that. He also specifically referred to the great development of light industries in Kenya, especially over the last few years, and tribute certainly should be paid in this direction, too. I feel that the Government—and I ask the Colonial Secretary to think about this in due course—could help a, great deal more in the development of such industry in Kenya.
Kenya, like most other countries, needs to develop its export markets and is at present endeavouring very hard to do so. It is entirely wrong that in trying to develop those markets Kenya should have such difficult problems to face as the very high cost of shipping freight from Mombasa to England—far more expensive than bringing goods from South Africa and vice versa. I strongly recommend that the Colonial Secretary and his officials should get together with the Kenya Government to see in what ways the Governments can intervene to assist further in helping the development

of such industries in Kenya for the benefit of all races of that country.
I should like to join in the admiration of the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Armagh (Mr. Armstrong). Unfortunately, we first met in Kenya under very unusual and unpleasant conditions before he became a Member of the House. In fact, we had a road accident together arising out of which I got to know him very well indeed. There is no doubt that he speaks with great knowledge of his subject, and the House is indebted to him for what he has told us this afternoon. I should like to join with him in one particular sentence. He said that we would all wish to become colour-blind and work together as one with the colour issue in Kenya put on one side. I agreed wholeheartedly with this view, which he expressed on this important aspect of our problems.
I agree that this has been a useful debate, and it has been helpful to have had this opportunity of discussing these important matters. Until a few months ago, a large body of opinion in this country, including many hon. Members who are critical on these occasions, often —through lack of knowledge of the subject of Kenya and the problems of all its people—failed to recognise the task being undertaken in Kenya, namely, to restore law and order for the benefit of all the people of Kenya, not only Europeans, but Asians and Africans alike.
Men of all races have worked together to achieve this restoration of law and order. Africans and Europeans have gone out on patrols together and fought side by side under the most trying conditions and have achieved most successful results. I do not think that it is fully realised in this country how Mau Mau was terrorising the people, the African tribes themselves, and that of these the greatest sufferers were the loyal Kikuyu.
In many respects, the circumstances were similar to those now operating in Cyprus, where thugs are acting in this way. It should be strongly emphasised that the Administration, the military and the police have combined together most successfully in Kenya. That is why criticism has now largely died down. Anyone who knows Kenya really well realises that, particularly over the last few months, one can justly and sincerely say


that because of such efforts happiness has been restored to large numbers of the people in Kenya and that the shadow of fear has receded.
Although tremendous publicity in the last few years has been given to the number of criticisms, very little indeed has been said about the first-class job being done by the Administration to receive the results to which we have now arrived. We are definitely indebted to the Europeans, the loyal Asians, and particularly the loyal Africans who have pursued a most difficult task, remaining loyal under such terrorising conditions. Most of all, we are indebted to the loyal Kikuyu, whose example of bravery in some of these terrible conditions has been quite outstanding.
I have been to Kenya many times, and I have had an opportunity on my visits to judge the situation fairly closely. One definitely recognises that the situation has much improved. I now want to see Kenya go ahead again so that the fullest benefits possible can come to its people from these improved conditions. I asked the Colonial Secretary a few months ago—and he agreed—that when the emergency is officially over that there should be an inquiry to see what led up to it in order that the people of Kenya are not placed in this same position again and to ensure that such similar difficulties can be avoided in the future.
I know it has not been the intention of the Government that Kenya should feel the full effects of our credit squeeze and other measures which have been taken here to deal with our financial problems. Nevertheless, Kenya has felt many of these actions. The result should not be that the progress which we all desire to see following the end of the emergency is retarded. We want Kenya to have improved and more stable conditions as soon as possible. My right hon. Friend the Chancellor of the Exchequer and other Members of the Government have often said that it is not their intention that our financial problems should affect Kenya, but the banks have not unnaturally stepped in and have put their own house in order. The result has been, particularly since February last, to create additional problems and difficulties for the people of Kenya.
Also about two-thirds of the troops have now been withdrawn from Kenya. Troops spend and cause money to circulate. The financial effect of their withdrawal has been felt already. There have been proper cuts in the administration, all with a corresponding drop in spending power. Kenya should not suffer too quickly from these actions of our Government, but needs all the time it can get so that its people can adapt themselves once again to peace conditions.
The Minister of State referred to the Swynerton plan. I would also like to refer to it, and in doing so I must disclose my own interest in the pineapple industry. The growing of pineapples is carried out in the main by Africans in the Kikuyu Reserves, by the very people whom we want to help on to their feet again. Our former Colonial Secretary often referred to the Kenya pineapple industry, and so has the Minister of State again this afternoon. The Kenya pineapple is considered to be of excellent quality and can be sold successfully in world markets under competitive conditions. Such an industry, however, takes several years to develop. For instance, Africans take five or six years to get it into full production. We have now reached the stage where the industry is trying to market all its pineapple, but the Africans may soon find considerable difficulties.
Such production has to be exported if it is all to be disposed of, and if supplies cannot be taken up the pineapples will just rot. I have already referred to the difficulties of excessive freight charges from Mombasa to London. The industry also has the burden of the high cost of ingredients and packing materials. Tins in Kenya are the most expensive, while sugar and other such items are often much more expensive than in other countries. Nevertheless, Kenya so far has been able to market the pineapples that the Africans have grown. England is its biggest market, and in 1955, 3,000 tons of such pineapple were imported by this country, which is about 5 per cent. of England's total consumption.
The Swynerton plan can be quite disturbing in many ways when we consider its full implementation because of the enormous quantities it proposes should be produced, and such quantities will be everincreasing. Our country imports pineapples from Australia, Malaya and South Africa, and now we are also permitting


large quantities of pineapples to come in from Formosa. This is one of the most competitive pineapple imports. In 1953 there were no such Formosan imports, but in 1954 they were 4 per cent, of the total, and in 1955 they had reached 12 per cent. of the total, double that of Kenya.
The Formosan pineapple comes in very cheaply, so it must be based on a low cost-structure. I make a strong appeal to the Government to face this situation, if they seriously believe in trying to improve the lot of the Kikuyu and other such people in Kenya. Otherwise, we shall not be in a position to implement the Swynerton plan it will remain nothing more than words unless it can be physically implemented. I have taken this matter up direct with the Colonial Secretary and he has replied that it is being considered. I sincerely hope that it will be taken much further than consideration. Unless there is considerable compensation to England by way of high exports of our own to Formosa, I cannot see the point of endangering the Swynerton plan on this important matter. We are today freely bringing pineapples in from Formosa at very cut prices to the real detriment of Kenya.
Like many other hon. Members, I am personally a great lover of Kenya and an admirer of all its peoples. I am most anxious that they should all get a square deal and an opportunity to go ahead, as I am sure every other hon. Member too wishes. I finally plead with the Government, "Do not call off the emergency too quickly". [HON. MEMBERS: "Ah"] We all, of course, want to see the end of the emergency, but let us be absolutely sure that all races and all the authorities too in Kenya are agreed that the time has come to say that the emergency is officially at an end. We do not want to expose the people of Kenya to more trials and tribulations, bearing in mind what they have gone through in the last four years.

8.28 p.m

Mr. Leslie Hale.: It is always strange to listen to the hon. Member for Croydon, North-West (Mr. F. Harris). I do not want to quarrel with him, because I did so once before and I must not do so again. When he talks of Kenya and says "all races", his remarks seem to refer only to the white

population. He said, "Do not call off the emergency because we do not want the people to be unhappy." What about people who have relatives in detention? What about those who have suffered under these repressive laws?

Mr. F. Harris: May I interrupt the hon. Member?

Mr. Hale: No, because the hon. Member has spoken and I have promised to sit down in a very few minutes. I will not give way, not out of discourtesy at all, but because I know that other hon. Members still want to speak in the debate.
I do not intend to pour fuel on the flames of controversy, but the right hon. Member for Woodford (Sir W. Churchill) once said that the use of recrimination about the past is to enforce action in the present. In many ways that is the only use of recrimination, the only justification of recrimination. We always find that a colonial debate becomes an unbalanced debate. Most of us welcomed the speech of the hon. Member for Armagh (Mr. Armstrong) today because he was saying something which a lot of us would like to say, but if in fifteen minutes we have to call attention to major grievances we cannot spend time in passing compliments. That is why sometimes speeches appear to be biased or one-sided or lacking in fairness.
I would say to the hon. Member for Armagh that he was a litle lighthearted about Income Tax rates in Kenya, where certainly the tax is very much less than it is here. The hon. Member was a little vague about wage rates in Kenya No one else has mentioned wages, which always seem to me the most important thing of all when considering the happiness and welfare of a community or the chance of a community to get on. After all, the man who got £50,000 in Kenya in 1953, at the height of the emergency, still retained £15,000 after paying Income Tax and Surtax. Let us not forget that before the emergency broke out Mr. Havelock said they were not gathering coffee beyond a certain quantity because taxation was too high and it was not worth the time taken to gather it. He never thought of giving increased wages, but wanted to save on taxation. They were making so much money that it was not necessary to gather more coffee.

Mr. Armstrong: rose—

Mr. Hale: I said that I would not give way, but if the hon. Member for Armagh wishes to interrupt and will be brief, I will give way to him, and I apologise to the hon. Member for Croydon, North-West for refusing him.

Mr. Armstrong: The hon. Member referred to some remarks of mine on the question of wages. Wages of which I have had personal experience have increased 300 per cent. since the early days of the emergency.

Mr. Hale: From what to what?

Mr. Armstrong: Including housing and feeding—

Mr. Hale: From what to what? From a Id. to 3d.?

Mr. Armstrong: From 15s. to 45s.—

Mr. Hale: I will give a figure in a moment. What I want to speak about tonight, if I get to it in the few minutes I intend to speak, is the difficulties we have in getting colonial debates. At Question Time the other day I made a suggestion that a day should be allocated for Colonial Questions. Sometimes the truth comes out even in an affidavit and sometimes it comes out in Parliamentary Answers, which is not very often. I am not making any personal attack on anyone, but the practice of the parties is not to be too full of information. The only two junior Ministers I can remember who were full of information got the sack in about a fortnight. Something has to be done about this question. There is complete inadequacy of information about colonial affairs. The Library is very excellently staffed, but it just has not got the books. It has not got the requisite information about colonial matters.
This morning, before I came to the House, I turned up HANSARD to see what was happening in this House about Kenya before the emergency commenced. Nothing was happening about Kenya before the emergency commenced. May I recall to the Committee that Her Majesty the Queen was living in a rooftop cottage in the Kenya jungle when she heard the tragic news of the death of her father. That was in a peaceful Kenya which for months had been surveyed by local M.I.5 officers to make sure that everything was all right, but Mau Mau had come in in 1947, I have the authority of the Kenya Member for Law

and Order for saying that this trouble came out of the suppression of the Kikuyu Central Association.
The hon. Member for Armagh very rightly referred to the difficulties of the settlers, and I agree with him. We have little time to pay tribute to the settlers in Kenya in the difficulties they have had to face in remote farms and the horrors of the situation, but let us face one thing quite frankly. There is an extreme element among the settlers. There is a lunatic fringe which really speaks in the terms of the Oregon Trail. The voice of the extreme settler of Kenya is the voice of the remote settler in the west of America, in pioneer days. They still say that they take no notice of the law and, "The law is only made for the people who work for me." They still talk of kidnapping the Governor and marching on the Governor's house with threats. They still threatened to murder my hon. Friend the Member for Eton and Slough (Mr. Fenner Brockway), or they still demanded the deportation of my hon. Friend and myself from the Colony. They still make those speeches.
I quoted today from the speech of a responsible Minister who referred to the Commissioner of the City Police, who went out to Kenya and did a good job—indeed, to be fair to him, he did a good deal to defend some of the Kenya police against the attacks made upon them—as "an indiscreet policeman who stabbed Kenya in the back." Yet the Commissioner defended the work of the police out there. He pointed out the great difficulties under which they were working and said that one man who had been severely criticised had been investigating about 59 cases of murder in two months. Despite that, he was called an indiscreet policeman who stabbed Kenya in the back—and that is the sort of voice being heard from a very small section in Kenya which seems to exercise power.
Before I return to the main point of my speech, I want to make one remark which may be controversial—one remark which may arouse some opposition. I will say it with all the moderation at my command. I believe in a multi-racial society in Africa; I believe that the Europeans have a great contribution to make in Africa; I believe that there are distinguished civil servants in Kenya doing medical research and social work, devoted


service in difficult circumstances, at moderate salaries for the cause of racial unity. But some one has to say this at some time and some one must make it clear that this is the will of the House: if 4,000 settlers in Kenya, in a country as big as France, determine to stand in the way—I hope they will not—of the legitimate advancement of five million Africans, then those settlers must get out of the way. It is time some one said that, and perhaps it had better be said at the moment by some one as irresponsible as I am until it can be said more judicially by some one whose words will carry more weight.
I said earlier that I was referring to what was happening in this House about Kenya in the few months before the emergency was declared. At such a time it is always very difficult to decide what course to take. It is quite likely that the Colonial Secretary himself has not much information at the time. In fact, at that time very few Questions were asked about Kenya. One was asked by my hon. Friend the Member for Accrington (Mr. H. Hynd); it received only a Written Answer, because it was not reached in time for an Oral Answer. He asked about the price of coffee and about wages. He was told that the price of coffee had risen in three seasons, from 1950-52, from £170 a ton to £370 a ton. That was the price paid to the farmer. The wages paid on the coffee farms, which were supposed to be the highest wages of all, had risen from about 4s. 3d. a week to 6s. ld. a week in the same period. It was said that that excluded housing and food allowances, the housing allowance being a bundle of sticks from which one could construct a hut.
My hon. Friend the Member for Blackburn (Mrs. Castle), who made an excellent speech and has now left the Chamber, seemed to be under the impression that the laws relating to passes were a product of the emergency. That is not so. There have always been pass laws.
If we refer not to what was happening in this House but to what was happening in the Kenya Legislative Assembly at the same time, we find that the Member for Law and Order in the Legislative Assembly, who did his very best to see that justice was administered impartially and who has since left that place to go to another, was calling attention in the

Kenya Legislative Assembly to the fact that 10,000 Africans were homeless in Nairobi every night. They had nowhere to go and nowhere to sleep. If an African had a hut to which he could go or if he could share a bed with another African, he was not included in that number; the 10,000 were the men who slept out in the streets every night. They were working at industrial wages and they had left their wives and families in the Kikuyu location. They had to find some means to maintain such establishments as were possible for them and to get food as they could.
Those were the conditions as they were described not by me but by the Member for Law and Order in the Legislative Assembly. If we are to learn anything from this, and if we are to learn what we ought to do now, we must see what happened, because in these circumstances we always have a difficult decision to take: either we must try conciliation. which may be risky, or we must try repression.
It is within the recollection of the Committee that when we came back to this country in November, 1952, it was still being said by the Colonial Office and by the Kenya Parliament that this was a small local outbreak which would soon be suppressed. It was still the theory that suppression could put an end to it in a few months. The right hon. Gentleman's predecessor in office, the noble Lord the Viscount Chandos, was offhandedly dismissing any suggestion that there was a widespread grievance in Kenya.
The Government decided on repression—and where do we go from there? In all the tragic history of repression, there are few examples more glaring than this. It would have taken a great deal to satisfy the grievances of the Irish people, whether in 1798 or in 1916, and we waited 120 years to do it. It would have taken so little to satisfy the grievances of the people of Kenya. They complained that their food was the highest-priced in Africa, and not subsidised. They complained that they could not have trade unions and that their wages were miserably low. There are only 200,000 registered employees on the farms today.
We, from this Legislature, have been paying £6 million a year to subsidise the repression. We could have settled those grievances for a few hundred thousand


pounds a year to subsidise their food and meet those other grievances. Those steps were open to us, but the Government said, "Oh, no, we can finish this in a short time." They found to their cost that they could not. The hon. Lady the Member for Flint, East (Mrs. White) has dealt very ably with the Coutts proposals; so ably that I have nothing more to say on that subject.
Where do we go from here? This is where we come again to the effects which, historically speaking, have been found in all this series of repression through the centuries because, when we finish the repression there is no one left to negotiate with. I would say from the heart, "Get people round the table now and hammer out a solution while you can. See if you can win the confidence of the Africans." Some time or other that has to be done. The longer we keep on with the policy of repression and restriction the more difficult it will be to get them round the table—but there is no one to come round the table.
Here, again, I come back to one Question which was put at the time I have referred to by my hon. Friend the Member for Eton and Slough. He asked if the then Secretary of State would receive a small deputation consisting of four hon. Members—of whom he was one, and my hon. Friend the Member for Flint, East and I were others—and two distinguished Africans. The Secretary of State said that he would not receive such a deputation.
My recollection of Acheng Oneke is that he was a charming, young, educated African pacifist who had come to work at the League of Nations and who was as keenly political as I was. The moment he gets back to Kenya he is arrested and put on trial with Jomo Kenyatta. The Court of Appeal said that there was no evidence against him and allowed his appeal. He was arrested the day after and has been detained ever since. I believe that he is the sort of man with whom we should be negotiating.
I want, too, to refer to Mr. Odede who, as we remember him, was a very moderate political leader. In fact he was criticised by his own followers for his moderation. He was subjected to the same sort of attack that I sometimes make on my own hon. Friends—but not the

ones at whom I am looking at the moment. He was arrested. I do not want to criticise the Colonial Secretary. He has made some courageous decisions in Africa and has made a good job in Uganda, and I have no desire to be unduly critical of him. He will, however, understand that the dilemma facing the genuine moderate in such a situation is that if he talks moderation he loses the confidence of his own people, and if he does not talk moderation he is arrested and detained. This is the story of Archbishop Makarios and of many Irish leaders in history.
In the last few weeks, Kenya has been sending out publicity to say that it is the most prosperous of all the Colonies in the world—and so it is. Prices are enormous. Productivity is high. I pay great tribute to them for the way that they have managed to carry on in the face of these difficulties, and to develop and expand their productivity. But it is a rich Colony. It can afford to pay decent wages. If we want people to respect human life, we must make life worth living. If we want to inculcate that respect in them, we must give them a decent standard of life.
It is not easy on the Kikuyu reserve. Perhaps some of the land reforms will help. But there is no excuse for paying those working the farms wages varying from 4s. to 8s. a week at the most, with the cost of living going up to 325 per cent., since the outbreak of war and when farmers are selling their coffee at eight, nine and ten times the amount which it fetched before the war.

Mr. Archer Baldwin: (Leominster) rose—

Mr. Hale: I will not give way. I said I would not, and the hon. Gentleman has not listened to half the debate.
Next, why not have trade unions there? The trade unions are now an accepted part of the governmental system of this country. I often think that they are too much of an accepted part, and play too great a part in the direct negotiations on political matters, but I would not like to express that sentiment out loud. However, they play their great part, and the Trades Union Congress has had distinguished representatives in Kenya during these last few


weeks. We have constantly urged recognition of the trade unions in Kenya. When the first general union out there, rather on the lines of the Tunisian union, made its first pronouncement, it came under the condemnation of the Government. It was regarded as political, and why?—because it concerned the cost of living. One is entitled to negotiate for so many shillings a week, but one is not entitled to say what those shillings will buy. Can there be any greater nonsense than that?
We have talked of co-operative farming. This could be the salvation of location agriculture. A co-operative farming officer was appointed, and he had an office, but the authorities forgot to give him any training, and after a week or two he was transferred to some other duties. When we met him out there he was doing another job. Why not start such a scheme? The Secretary of State could do this. He could go out there now and, by the force of his personality and by the authority of his position, could say "Some of these things have got to be done. The British public conscience will not tolerate the continuation of this state of affairs. The British public purse has contributed to maintaining you in this emergency. We now see you in your prosperity. This repression cannot continue."
This matter affects not only Kenya but the world as a whole. Our attitude in Kenya has a considerable effect on American opinion. But that was not the point that I wished to emphasise. Our attitude to the people of Kenya has its repercussion in Tanganyika, Uganda and the adjoining territories. At this moment a real struggle has started for the soul of Africa. The liberal conscience of Britain is becoming heard more than it has been for a long time; people are evolving a new conception of human rights and there is a new demand for human dignity. We cannot afford to allow a small body of settlers by a policy of repression to lose the fundamental moral integrity of Britain which is tied up in this struggle.

8.50 p.m

Dame Irene Ward: I listen to the opening of debates on colonial affairs rather sadly, because it always seems that a great political controversy between the two main parties is

about to develop. Yet, in that curious way which the House of Commons has, even though controversy does rage as between a few speakers, there are a few lights which break into the rather dark atmosphere. I was interested that the speech, which was made with so much general approval in the Committee by the hon. Member for Armagh (Mr. Armstrong) and which, after all, did represent Government policy, was praised by the hon. Gentleman the Member for Eton and Slough (Mr. Fenner Brockway).
The curious thing is that if the hon. Member for Eton and Slough does, in fact, support the policy which was advocated by my hon. Friend the Member for Armagh, he obviously must be unaware that in Kenya, in exactly the same way as the hon. Lady the Member for Blackburn (Mrs. Castle), the hon. Member for Eton and Slough is regarded as a destructive force. As I listened to their speeches. I wondered whether either of them realised what tremendous harm they were doing to the moderating and helpful forces in Kenya. That, I think, is on the disappointing side of this debate today.
I have only a very few minutes and, like the hon. Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Hale), I have a lot of things to say. I have known the Secretary of State for the Colonies for many years, and I am quite certain that he stands for all the good things and for proper and sound administration. I am waiting for him to reply, to the charges that have been made by Miss Fletcher and to the charges made by the hon. Lady the Member for Blackburn.
I want to ask my right hon. Friend one question about something which rather puzzled me during the course of the debate. A great many documents have been produced in the House of Commons. Some of these documents have been read out in great detail. I should like to know from my right hon. Friend whether the same procedure which governs the obtaining of information by Members of Parliament in this House through the appropriate Minister, which is supplied to him by the Civil Service, applies in Kenya, because it seems to me that quite a number of documents giving information, which I quite agree the House is entitled to have, should have gone through the normal channels, in which case there could be no doubt that all the information contained in those documents would


have been available to my right hon. Friend.
I would like to know about the protocol for obtaining information, because if Members of Parliament who belong to what I call the destructive forces in the set-up among hon. Members opposite can obtain information, I might like also to make my inquiries in my own way, without going through the normal channels. I should be grateful to have an answer on that point.
I, too, have paid some short visits to Kenya. It seems to me that in the House of Commons we tend to forget to say how much sound and good work has been started there. Some reference has been made, I am glad to say, to the community development centres and the work which has been done among the Kikuyu women. I have seen some of that work and, like everyone else, I have been very impressed by the devotion of the officials connected with it. I think that from time to time, so far as the social work for women and children is concerned, we tend to talk of the big political problems and to leave some of the smaller though most important matters undiscussed and unreported.
I would say to my right hon. Friend that I have always held—and I am not trying to ride one of my old hobby horses—that a little more emphasis should be placed by the Secretary of State on the women's side in colonial affairs. I should like to see a little more evidence that women of experience, knowledge and enthusiasm are consulted at top level. I feel that sometimes the affairs of women do tend to become submerged beneath the many important problems which I fully recognise have to be undertaken by the Secretary of State. I was very pleased indeed to be able to visit some of these community development centres, and to see the work that was going on there, to meet the women from the tribes, and, as far as I could, not speaking the language, to get an impression of how much they appreciated the work which was being done for them.
Quite frankly, I do not believe the implications of the charges which were made, either by Miss Fletcher or by the hon. Lady the Member for Blackburn.

I hope that the Secretary of State will refute those charges up to the hilt.
I realise that there are two very important speeches that the Committee wants to hear, and there is only one other point I wish to make. I have something to say about the emergency. The impression which is created in my mind, and which will, I know, be created in the minds of the general public and of moderate people in Kenya, is that as soon as things begin to go right, the revolutionary spirits on the other side of the Committee try to stir the pot and blow up trouble. I say that with all the emphasis I can command. I have detected it already in this debate.
Some hon. Gentlemen opposite, and the hon. Lady the Member for Blackburn, have said that the emergency legislation must be withdrawn without delay. Do not detain, they say; do not control; do not keep the emergency running too long. We all know about that; but there is something of which I wish to remind hon. and right hon. Gentlemen opposite.
I do not necessarily blame them for some of the things which have been said, because I realise that a great many people on both sides really know very little about the mind of the African or the minds of primitive peoples. That is abundantly clear from some of the speeches which are made. There is something which I have never heard said in this House, and I myself have been waiting a long time to say it. The former Secretary of State for the Colonies in the Labour Government, the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Llanelly (Mr. J. Griffiths), was led right up the garden path by Jomo Kenyatta. [Laughter.] it is no good hon. and right hon. Gentlemen laughing. It is true.

Mr. Hobson: It is not true.

Dame Irene Ward: It is true. It was reported from Kenya. It has been well known in this country that Jomo Kenyatta and the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Llanelly were very great friends and saw a great deal of each other. The right hon. Gentleman was guided in many of his ideas about Kenya by Jomo Kenyatta. All I am saying is that if men like Jomo Kenyatta, who now finds himself convicted of being one of the inspiring figures behind the creation of Mau Mau, was able


to pull wool across the eyes of the colonial administration of which the right hon. Gentleman the Member for Llanelly was the head—

Mr. J. Griffiths: rose—

Dame Irene Ward: No; I have got only one minute to say what I want to say now, and I shall not give way. [HON. MEMBERS: "Withdraw."] I am only saying that if the right hon. Gentleman could be so misguided by Jomo Kenyatta, I am not in the least surprised—[HON. MEMBERS: "Withdraw."] I shall not withdraw. I intend to finish my speech.

Mr. Griffiths: On a point of order. The hon. Lady made a reference to myself, Sir Charles. I thought I was entitled to ask her for the usual courtesy of the Committee in allowing me to make a comment.

The Chairman: I did not hear what was said; but I understood that the hon. Lady promised to sit down at five minutes to nine, and it is now nine o'clock.

Dame Irene Ward: I did not begin my speech until shortly before nine o'clock, Sir Charles. All I am saying is that wool was pulled across the eyes of the right hon. Gentleman by Jomo Kemyatta and that he should not let it be pulled across his eyes again.

9.0 p.m.

Mr. Aneurin Bevan: I want to begin by referring to the speech of my right hon. Friend the Member for Wakefield (Mr. Creech Jones) in opening the debate. He was followed by the Minister of State for Colonial Affairs, who chided him for devoting only five minutes of a speech of 55 minutes to praise of praiseworthy activities in Kenya. That was a most unfair reference, and it was rather stupid. To talk about five minutes out of 55 reminded me of the man who bought his library by the ton. Some people can say as much in five minutes as others can say in 55 minutes.
There is, however, a further point and an even more serious one. We ought not to be chided all the while because we do not waste the time of the Committee in giving out bouquets and handing out prizes. That is not our function. If the Colonial Secretary looks back over his recent speeches, he will find that he has wasted a good deal of the time of the

House in handing out bouquets all around him. It is our function to try to focus attention on the things that are wrong. If we start a catalogue of the things that are all right, we will never reach the things that are wrong. Therefore, we ought not to be chided in that way. I shall not spend my time in giving praise where praise is due to people in Kenya, but I shall ask the Committee to consider very seriously the situation at which we have arrived, especially in the supervision of colonial administration.
Very grave difficulties are arising in different parts of the world. We are faced with a very serious crisis in Cyprus. We may have very great difficulty in Singapore. Trouble is starting in Aden and may develop, and trouble has not been altogether removed in Kenya. It has been borne in upon me and upon my hon. Friends that the time has now arrived when the House of Commons should gravely consider an overhauling of our constitutional relationship to colonial administration. I am not making this a criticism of the holder of the existing office, nor am I making it a reflection upon his predecessors, on either side of the House; but I seriously suggest that a situation has developed in the colonial dependencies which is getting out of hand.
The House of Commons has now not got a sufficiently tight grip of the situation. We are always after the fact. Crises are arising that we are unable to catch hold of in time. The speech of the hon. Lady the Member for Tynemouth (Dame Irene Ward), who has just left the Committee, is evidence of that. If we do not hear of anything untoward happening, no one pays any attention. If there is trouble, we are told to shut up until it is all over, and when it is all over we are told to shut up because it is all over.
The fact of the matter is that there is a grave breakdown in communication between Parliament and what is happening in the Colonies. We have been considering this for some time, and we are going to make certain proposals to Parliament for revising the constitutional machinery. Not only is the constitutional machinery itself out of date, but we are also proceeding on certain fictions which were useful in the past but which are now entirely outmoded.
We often talk about the Government out there when we are hiding behind a


fiction. We know that it is not the Government out there at all but that the final responsibility lies here. This fiction of the Government out there is resurrected all the while in order to conceal the responsibility of the central Government. We talk about the people on the spot knowing more about it than people here. All that that means is that we get our information from highly prejudiced people on the spot—on both sides—and we are quite often unable to check the sources of information. The fact is that the Library on the Colonies is hopelessly out of date. We cannot even get source papers. Again, I am not attacking the Colonial Office, nor any of the officials, who are, within their limits and powers. most courteous and attentive, but I remember that when I wanted to get the Coutts Report and went to the Library, I was sent a copy from the Colonial Office very promptly, but they wanted it back within a few days because it was the only copy they had.
Let hon. Members in all parts of the Committee consider what that indicates. It indicates an almost frivolous sense of irresponsibility about what is happening in the Colonies, because if we are to keep abreast of what is occurring we should have access to all the information, and we certainly should have access to documents as soon as they can be made available. We cannot get them. Ordinances are made and promulgated affecting the lives and liberties of people for whom we are responsible, and we do not hear about them until some months after they are in operation, and until there is some protest from someone in the Colonies about them.
This may have worked all right in years gone by, but it is no good now. The Colonies are awakening. People are moving towards, they hope, the realisation of self-government, nationhood and higher standards of citizenship and of living. They demand that we who exercise the power shall exercise that power intelligently and in time. Therefore, I seriously suggest to hon. Members in all parts of the Committee that the time has now come for us to make one more of those constitutional adaptations for which our constitution is famous.
Our constitution is flexible. We are not caught within the confines of a written Statute. We can do what we like with

it, change it about and adapt it to changed circumstances, and I am hoping that when we come to make our proposals to Parliament they will have a friendly reception. The purpose of the proposals will be to bring the Colonial Office under a more continuous examination. That is not being said merely in order to try to score party points. I am merely trying to suggest that there has been a slow accumulation of facts of which we ought now to take note.
We are not really trying to do our duty by the 70 million people who depend upon us in the Colonies merely by putting down Questions every six weeks, when many of them are very rarely reached, and especially when, after long centuries of experience, we have produced a whole lot of Ministers who are all excellent at the art of parrying and dodging the Questions when they arise. That is the first important point that I want to make.
My second important point is this. I hope that it is not necessary for me to repeat what has been said, because most hon. Members who have been present during the course of this debate will admit that, from both sides of the Committee, the debate has achieved a higher standard than most colonial debates to which I have listened for a very long time.
It is not necessary for me to repeat the excellent speech by my hon. Friend the Member for Eton and Slough (Mr. Fenner Brockway). However, that speech has to be answered. The case really has to be met. It will not be sufficient for the Colonial Secretary to cast doubt on the bona fides of Miss Fletcher. It will not be enough for him to repeat some of the statements of his hon. Friends who said, "Why did she not say what she did earlier? Or why did she not say what she did more clearly? Or why did she not say it in Kenya? Or why did she not say it to the Colonial Secretary?" All that is unimportant. The question is, is what she said true?
The Colonial Secretary will not be doing himself justice nor the reputation of this country justice if he attempts to fob the whole thing off by casting doubt on the ability or on the industry or on the reputation of this witness. The facts are stated with too great circumstantiality to be dismissed in that way. Therefore,


I hope that the right hon. Gentleman is either prepared to make a full reply tonight to those charges or is prepared to undertake an investigation which can be relied upon. That investigation does not mean merely conveying to us what the Kenya Government say in rebuttal of the charges. That is not enough. We must have a better investigation than that.
Furthermore, very great damage has been done by the allegations that Colonel Young has not been able for some reason or another to give the reasons for his resignation. It is far better that the whole thing be brought out into the daylight. He was sent by the Colonial Secretary from here to help in the crisis in Kenya. He resigned after seven or nine months. He is attacked by a Minister in the Kenya Legislature in the rudest possible terms. He has not, I understand, had an opportunity to reply. Until he is able to give his evidence, the reputation of the Kenya Government for the administration of justice in Kenya is under a cloud.
There are those two main points affecting the administration which we must ask the Colonial Secretary to deal with tonight. One of the reasons why we have not decided to divide the Committee on this occasion is that we thought it undesirable ourselves to come to a conclusion before the evidence had been properly examined. It did not seem to us that in a grave matter of this sort we ought to reach a conclusion when, perhaps, there was another side of the case; but the other side must be presented, because if it is not satisfactorily presented we shall have to return to it on another occasion.
For it is not good enough that we should accept responsibility in this Committee for the detention of thousands of people in Kenya under no charge whatsoever. It really is not good enough to bring people before the courts of justice on charges which are dismissed by the courts and then immediately to take the people who are declared innocent into detention and to keep them there indefinitely. This is an outrage, and I am quite certain that if it were known by our people, if our people were more familiar with the facts, they would not allow it to go on any longer. They are not familiar with the facts, because Parliament has not the constitutional means of

focussing attention on the facts. This is our one opportunity for some time.
A lot has been said about Mau Mau, about the atrocities committed by Mau Mau, and no one on this side of the Committee would pretend to do other than express the utmost abhorrence of them. Mau Mau, however, originated somewhere, in something. It did not come out of nothing. One would have thought that the administration of Kenya had no responsibility for Mau Mau, but, after all, Mau Mau has been growing in Kenya for 30 years. The situation in Kenya was becoming increasingly intolerable. We had created in Kenya the social context in which those extremes were almost inevitable. We talk here as though the administration of Kenya, as though the seizure of land in Kenya and all those things were not responsible at all for Mau Mau, but I have before me a description of this situation that appeared in The Times of Saturday, 29th January, last year. I want to read it to the Committee. The Times said:
Before the Europeans came, African tribes moved freely across the countryside. No doubt, if the most fertile land became overcrowded the weaker brethren were driven off into less attractive areas. All this changed when the European arrived. He did not, in general, dispossess the Arican of land, as is sometimes said. He settled and developed the more attractive and unoccupied spaces. But he wrought a revolutionary change in fixing and stabilising the tenure of land. International boundaries were established; European freehold was introduced. The Africans were confined to but also protected in their tribal reserves. Agriculture, which had been flexible, became rigid; and, in a matter of half a century, when some tribes, such as the Kikuyu in Kenya and the Meru in Tanganyika, have increased, while others, such as the Masai, decreased, a series of pressures, political and economic, built up. Because the population tended to increase most rapidly in the most fertile areas, and because in these areas there are also great strips of European-owned farms acting as barriers to tribal expansion. resentment tended to rise against European land ownership. This is the principal explanation of the Mau Mau movement.
[HON. MEMBERS: "Nonsense."] This is confirmed over and over again by students of the situation in Kenya. The only people who defend the situation in Kenya are the beneficiarles of the system, and we have heard some of them this afternoon in this Committee. The Times went on to say:
The tragedy is that Mau Mau broke out before the royal commission was appointed,


let alone had time to report. It is the persistent tendency to postpone facing the inevitable which has led to so much trouble and unhappiness in the past.
That is The Times last year. It is not us, not these revolutionaries, not these extremists who are stirring up trouble, not those who are poking at resentment when it is inclined to die down, to use the expression of the hon. Lady the Member for Tynemouth (Dame Irene Member for Tynemouth. Mau Mau broke out against that background.
Now we have another opportunity. It is said that the crisis is receding, that a new atmosphere is being created. I hope that is so. I hope that we are going to take advantage of the new opportunity, but I must say that I was very depressed by some of the speeches today. The hon. Member for Kirkdale (Mr. N. Pannell), for example, could have made the same speech if he had been in the Parliament of 1830. [An HON. MEMBER: "He did."] Maybe the hon. Member did. He spoke about the necessity of extending the franchise very slowly and of not being ideological in the growth of democracy, of remembering that democracy takes different forms—

Mr. N. Pannell: Does the right hon. Gentleman refute the conclusions of the Dow Report, which said that the choice was between rapid political advancement and economic prosperity?

Mr. Bevan: Of course I dispute it. The hon. Member reminds me of an occasion once when I spent a weekend with Mr. H. G. Wells. There was a Conservative Member there of a cast-iron type whom Wells cross-examined about his ideas on education. When we were going upstairs to get ready for the evening he said to me, "You know, I have written about them often, but I never thought they existed." The hon. Member reminded me of that this evening. He does not seem to understand that other people really do not like to hear themselves described as inferior. [HON. MEMBERS: "Vermin."] I must say that is really an old one now. In any case, hon. Members ought to do their best not to deserve the epithet.
In putting this case to the House, we say that, for our part, it is essential that as far as possible the constitutional development of the Colonies should arise

from common agreement in this House. It would be extremely undesirable if every time there was a change of Government in Great Britain there was also a change in the constitution of the Colonies. But that has its corollary, which is that although the Government have the final responsibility they should, as far as possible, seek to carry the Opposition with them. In this matter they are not doing that.
We do not like these proposals. We say quite frankly that we expect the Colonial Dependencies to be able to look forward not so much to multi-racialism as to democracy. As my right hon. Friend said at the beginning of the debate, we set our faces against any proposal for complete self-government in any of the Colonies until there is complete democracy in them. We do not believe in relinquishing the democratic rights of this Parliament to an undemocratic constitution in any of the Colonies. Therefore. we insist on reserving to this House the final voice on the constitutional development of any Colony until that Colony has achieved complete democratic self-government. That is our position.
Our second point is that when we are making constitutions for the Colonies we should make them of a kind that will lend themselves to easy democratic development. In part, we accept the argument that the crisis in Kenya has made the local circumstances unfavourable to the immediate extension of democratic government there, but we wish to see a constitution under which the Africans in Kenya can look forward to having democracy within a foreseeable space of time. That is why we do not like these proposals. We do not like this weighted franchise. We do not like votes handed out as prizes for the establishment.
Democracy would never have arrived in this country if the critics of the Government had been denied the franchise. The voice of Charles James Fox would never have been heard here at all if the only people who had the vote were those who supported the establishment. In such circumstances, one can never get progress or a broadening of democracy or of the constitution because, quite naturally, those who hold the franchise will extend it only to those who support them.
That is suggesting that votes be awarded like Sunday school prizes and awarded by appointed officials to those who have received a civil or military decoration, or have been certified by the provincial commissioner as having performed outstanding service to the community. On the basis of such a constitution I should have been denied the franchise most of my life, because I am certain that until recently—it may be up to the present day—hon. Members opposite would not think that I deserved one vote, much less three votes.
The Government should set their face against that, because it will create all kinds of prejudice and lead to the possibility of corruption and to a distrust of the constitution by a large number of Africans and will therefore not build that basis of co-operation in Kenya which we all desire to see established. As my hon. Friend the Member for Flint, East (Mrs. White) said earlier, we want Africans to have an equality of franchise among themselves. They want to see a common roll established, and I will explain why.
If two elements in a constitution are running together, the Africans will say quite properly that their representation is too small. For example, it is suggested on the present basis that each European member will represent about 3,500 persons, each Asian member about 25,000 and each African nearly one million. Does any hon. Member think for a single moment that that constitution will stand examination for long? It is not one in which Africans will repose any confidence. Certainly there could be qualifications in the meantime, not subjective but objective qualifications which can be measured. I would rather have a qualification measured by income per year than than by a medal, because it is easy to give a man a medal in order to give him a vote and not so easy to give him property.
If we had a common roll running pan passu in the same constitution with communal representation, and it the Africans said that they wanted more communal representatives, another argument would be to say that it is far better to broaden the basis of the qualifications, so that one instrument would operate against the other. We want the common roll eventually to broaden and broaden until it absorbs the communal roll, because that

is the only way in which we can have democracy. The only way in which we can extinguish the communal roll is to have the common roll competing with it in the same constitutional apparatus. That is why we think that in these existing proposals there is a very grave danger of freezing existing antagonisms and providing an opportunity for inflaming them very much more.
I know that on some of these matters the right hon. Gentleman's mind is open, and that he is prepared in the course of the next few years to meet representatives of the different communities in Kenya to see whether agreement can be reached. Meeting them means that they must be free to meet him. He must be ready to free some of them from detention and to create a better atmosphere in Kenya. We can assure the right hon. Gentleman that what we have heard this evening has disturbed many of us very deeply indeed. We are not prepared to leave the matter where it is.

9.30 p.m.

The Secretary of State for the Colonies (Mr. Alan Lennox-Boyd): The right hon. Gentleman the Member for Ebbw Vale (Mr. Bevan) has given me and the Committee notice that he and his colleagues propose at a fairly early date to submit certain proposals for a change in the constitutional machinery concerning our dealings with colonial affairs. My colleagues and I, and the House of Commons as a whole, will, naturally, examine with an open mind any proposals that are made. I share with the right hon. Gentleman a feeling that the system of Parliamentary Question and Answer in this field is not altogether a satisfactory way of exercising and showing the interest of the House of Commons in this matter.
I would like to remind hon. Members of one aspect of the matter, which is that about 90 per cent. of the Questions that are addressed to me have to be telegraphed to Colonial Governments for their comments. It would be the first fruits of a constitutional revolution if I could be given an early warning of the Questions which hon. Gentlemen wish to ask.
I agree that there is room for some hard thinking on constitutional matters. One of my most distinguished predecessors, Lord Milner, said once—and if it was true then how much more true is it today—


that any Secretary of State for the Colonies is prevented from giving all the attention that he ought to give to long-term and imperial problems because he is constantly distracted by the temporary and the local. One of the advantages of being in Opposition is that there is time available for reflection and hard thinking. I wish the right hon. Member for Ebbw Vale plenty of time in which to engage in that reflection. I am seriously interested in what he said, and we will, of course, give it the most careful consideration.
One of the first fruits of this examination by the Socialist Party will not, I hope, be to endorse one of the remarks which the right hon. Member for Ebbw Vale made, that the main duty in these debates—I think he said—is to concentrate on what is wrong. That is a little unfortunate when we are dealing with a Colony like Kenya, which is almost on the verge of a new test of multiracial government, because everything said here is listened to with intense interest in Kenya. If there is undue concentration on what some hon. Members think has gone wrong, and if the things which they think have gone right are not mentioned because it is not their duty to mention them, that has a very disquieting effect in Kenya and may help to lead to some of the observations which are reported from time to time from Kenya by hon. Gentlemen with regret.
I hope that I shall not be accused of merely being genial and polite when I say that it has been an interesting debate. It has been, as always on these matters of Kenya, a debate inspired by much passionate sincerity, which has not been confined to the longest speeches or those delivered with the most vehement oratorical flourishes. This is a very important moment in the history of Kenya, with immense opportunities for the welfare of that great territory at this very exciting time. How much I share the view of my hon. Friend the Member for Armagh (Mr. Armstrong) that what we all need in these matters is a little bit of colour-blindness; not colour-blindness which leads us to believe that there are no differences between races, for that would be futile, but the colour-blindness that leads us to recognise—once more I quote Lord Milner—that the firm ground of civilisation, and not the rotten and indefensible

ground of colour, should be the proper qualification for citizenship.
There have emerged in recent years in Kenya many fine leaders of the four races living in Kenya. No one will ever forget the Arabs with their great historical past, their great present and their future importance. I should like to pick on one or two individuals who have done so much to help to bring Kenya to its present state, but in the political field it would, on the eve of an election, be a little unwise for a Secretary of State to pick on particular individuals and give them a meed of praise.
I think, however, that I would be entitled to mention one friend of many of us here who, alas, is leaving—he tells me it is his irrevocable decision—leaving Kenya politics and Kenya itself—Mr. Patel, a member of the Council of Ministers. I, like many others, deeply regret his decision to leave Kenya towards the end of the year to go to Pondicherry. One cannot quarrel with the strong inner urge which impels him to change the course of his life, but Kenya will suffer greatly and the Council of Ministers, in particular, will suffer greatly from the loss of his valuable advice.
The hon. Member for Keighley (Mr. Hobson) followed on the speech of my hon. Friend the Member for Armagh, who referred to our unanimity of purpose. This unanimity of purpose was, I think, shown in a number of other speeches as well. We are meeting to discuss the affairs of Kenya at a time when the security forces and the law-abiding people of Kenya have achieved the most immense success, and at a time when the economic development of agriculture and industry has gone forward by leaps and bounds.
In the last year alone the African cash income from agricultural sales, including livestock, was up by more than £¼ million on the year before. Last year, also, the building plans for Nairobi City were nearly twice what they were the year before. They were £8 million. As to the finances of Kenya, by shrewd management and the buoyancy of the revenue, they did not, for example, call on the United Kingdom for as much money as we had expected and they are entitled to face the future with modest optimism.
The hon. Member for Keighley, rightly concentrating a part of his speech on


economic development, asked me something about the Tana River project. The Kenya Government are investigating the development of irrigation for agricultural projects. In 1954—the year before last—my irrigation officer, Mr. Lacey, went there and he has advised us that certain agricultural experiments should be launched to test the potential value of these projects. Those are under way and an experienced officer from the Sudan has been appointed to direct the pilot scheme. I very much agree with hon. Members who have said that it is essential that there should not be a concentration of economic development on the Kikuyu reserves alone. I think nothing could be more important than that.
The rough yardstick is that for every ld. spent on the Kikuyu reserves 1½d. should be spent on development among tribes who have steadfastly supported the Government. Among the Kamba around Machakos the most striking schemes are under way and among the Luo and others in the Nyanza Province there is a drive which is gaining strength. Here the test which is of the greatest importance is to win the confidence also of the local people.
Had I a longer time in which to speak, I would have dealt in considerable detail with the detention situation and shown something of our hopes and ambitions in the matter of annual or monthly releases so that as soon as possible Kenya shall be brought back in this respect as in others to something approaching the normal. I am afraid that time does not allow for that because, in addition to other matters, I want to answer some of the charges which have been made in connection with statements made by Miss Fletcher about Kenya this year
Those are not the only charges made against the Government of Kenya. A number of hon. Members have also referred to Colonel Young. I do not propose to add to the agreed statement I made, a statement agreed with the Government of Kenya and Colonel Young. I feel sure that many hon. Members will agree with me, and I suspect that Colonel Young would also agree, that he who is a serving officer should be spared further embarrassment caused by the use of his name for political purposes.

Mr. Dugdale: rose—

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: I cannot give way.

Mr. Dugdale: rose—

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: I cannot give way. I have 20 minutes in which to make my speech. [HON. MEMBERS: "Give way."] Hon. Members cannot have it both ways; either I answer their speeches, or I give way. I cannot do both.
I turn to the speeches which have been made about certain charges brought by Miss Fletcher on her experiences in Kenya. I do not propose to engage in any controversy whether this lady relied too much on gossip and chance observations; I have strong views on that matter and I read with interest in both the English Press and the East African Standard certain very qualifying observations which were made by people who have every right to speak and who are very closely associated with the Christian Council of Kenya and the Friends Service Council in that Colony, but I am afraid that time will not allow me to deal with that subject in any detail. I will, therefore, start straight away by picking up the various charges which have been made. [HON. MEMBERS: "There is plenty of time."] There is not plenty of time, since the debate automatically comes to an end at 10 o'clock.
Miss Fletcher observed that because she could not accept the conditions, which she goes on to describe, it was impossible for her to continue her work with the Government of Kenya. I am told—and I believe this implicitly; and I would point out that the Ministry of Community Development is headed in Kenya by an African, Mr. Ohanga—that she offered her resignation after seven months because she would not agree to live in Kamiti, the main prison and detention camp for all Mau Mau women, where housing had been provided for her. There is no record whatsoever of her ever having brought to the notice of the Ministry which employed her the alleged conditions of which she now complains. She had a long interview with the Chief Secretary before her departure in which she made vigorous complaints, but they were vigorous complaints about purely personal matters and she made no reference whatsoever to maltreatment of detainees or juvenile offenders or any of the matters to which she has now given publicity in her article.
Miss Fletcher criticises the round-up of Africans in Nairobi and says that it was indiscriminate. But hon. Members will recall that it was one of the first fruits of the Parliamentary delegation which visited Kenya and that special efforts were made to look after the dependants of those taken in custody after an operation on a very large scale. Young males under 18 were brought together in a camp for about 1,200 in an approved school where they are taught trades and given ample physical recreation and sport.
Miss Fletcher also deals with the detention of convicts after they have served their sentences. This is a complicated but vitally important matter into which I would be very glad to go into detail on another occasion, but I would remind the Committee that if someone has served a sentence for an offence of which he has been convicted, it does not then follow that from the security point of view in Kenya today—and this was still more true a year or more so ago—it is safe to allow him to return home to his own district.
Miss Fletcher quoted Mr Justice Cram, saying that the Kikuyu Home Guard is an illegal body. In this, the judge was quite in error, as my right hon. Friend has pointed out. Sir Vincent Glenday's Report followed after that.
Had my Questions for oral answer been reached in the House today, it would have been possible for me to have replied to all the questions I was asked, but perhaps it would be quickest if I give the answers which I should have given to the three Questions in the name of the hon. Member for Eton and Slough (Mr. Fenner Brockway). Under Kenya legislation no child under the age of 14 may be sentenced to imprisonment, and there are no children under that age in prison in Kenya. Any young person over the age of 14 may be sentenced to imprisonment, with or without hard labour, under Emergency Regulations or other laws for such periods as those regulations or laws may provide. In practice, the hardest work for prisoners of this age, from 14 to 18, is cultivating vegetables.
During the past three years 21 boys and 16 girls under the age of 16 have been sentenced to terms of imprisonment varying from under six months to life. Only in exceptional cases do courts order

imprisonment. Male convicts under 16 years of age are normally sent to approved schools, but no approved school exists for female convicts and they are sent to the women's prison at Kamiti, where they are segregated from the other prisoners in a special compound which has all the facilities of an approved school. Any person may be detained under Emergency Regulation 2, and there is no minimum age at which a child may be so detained. In practice, one boy aged 12, and 30 boys aged 13, are at present detained in camps for detainees which are run as approved schools.
The hon. Member for Eton and Slough produced prison records purporting to bear on their face the exact ages of certain children concerned. I have no quarrel with him for doing that, and I fully believe that he sincerely thought that that was a fair record. On 19th May last I was informed by the Governor of Kenya that 21 young girls were serving prison sentences at Kamiti under the apparent age of 16, of whom he said that seven were 15, eight were 14, five were 13 and one was 12 years of age.
Eleven days later, on 29th May, the Governor telegraphed me to say that these ages he had given had been wrongly quoted owing to "inaccuracy in the prison records." He goes on:
All have now been medically examined and their approximate ages are medically certified to be 15 in three cases, 15½ in one case. 16½ in one case and 17½ in one case.
All these young people were circumcised women and were regarded as adult members of the Kikuyu Tribe. The hon. Member for Eton and Slough was quite entitled to be misled, I think, by what is actually a prison record error.

Mr. Bevan: With all respect, these records are signed by the Commissioner of Prisons, and it is an extraordinary coincidence, surely, that these ages should all have been wrong. Do we now understand that ages are fixed retrospectively?

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: I hope that the right hon. Gentleman will not use arguments of that kind. No court in Kenya can sentence to imprisonment anyone under 14 years of age so that that, by itself, is a sufficiently good indication that there was an error on the document. To make doubly sure of that, this morning I myself spoke on the telephone to


Sir Barclay Nihill, who confirmed my view that no court could have sentenced anyone under 14 to imprisonment at all.

Mr. Bevan: If the courts do, in fact, sentence a prisoner in this way, would the Commissioner be committing an offence by signing a document to the effect that he had, in fact, accepted the custody of a person illegally imprisoned?

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: He would, indeed, if it had been the fact that a court had sentenced someone under 14 and the Commissioner had received him. It would be an improper act. But the fact is that they were not under 14, and I can only ascribe the error in the documents to the tragic amount of work that faced people at that time.

Mr. Bevan: With all due respect, this is much too serious. Whether he did, in fact, commit an offence or not, he thought that he was illegally imprisoning these people because he signed a document which states the ages of the children, and they are all under age. Therefore, on his own showing, he stated that they were illegally imprisoned.

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: I agree that this is a very important matter, but that seems to me to be a less important aspect of it than the others. What I certainly will do is to write to the Governor about that particular point and, if I am asked to do so, I will publish his reply in the OFFICIAL REPORT.

Mr. J. Johnson: Is not the important fact this? What were the ages which were given in court when the judge sentenced these youngsters? We have been told this evening that in court they were sentenced as being over 14 years of age, but that when they got to gaol the governor stated in his records that they were not 14. How does the discrepancy arise?

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: Owing to an error in the prison records. In a matter of this kind, where the good faith of the Secretary of State and, what is really more important, of the Government of Kenya, is involved, I would ask hon. Members to believe definitely that the story that I had given is the true story, a regrettable mistake—

Mr. Bevan: I am much obliged to the right hon. Gentleman for giving way

again. There is one more question that I must put in fairness. If this be the case, if an error has been made, Miss Fletcher herself was entitled to believe that the ages which had been certified by the Commissioner were, in fact, the right ages. Therefore, her evidence was given in good faith.

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: Certainly. I expressly said that I did not want to make any charge against Miss Fletcher. Even if I had not got the proof, I was not going to do that anyhow. I fully accept that that is so.
I am quite prepared on future Wednesdays, or in any other way that may present itself, to deal further with these particular cases, and if I now pass from this matter it is only because there are other matters with which I want to deal, and not because I feel that I have dealt with every aspect of this problem.

Mr. Brockway: rose—

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: I will not give way.

The Chairman: If the Secretary of State does not give way, the hon. Member must resume his seat.

Mr. Brockway: On a point of order.

The Chairman: What is the point of order?

Mr. Brockway: The right hon. Gentleman the Secretary of State, in the last few minutes, has been replying to accusations which I have made—

The Chairman: That is not a point of order at all.

Mr. Brockway: Further to that point of order. Is it not the ordinary custom, when an attack and charges are made by an hon. Member, to allow him to put a question to the Minister?

The Chairman: I was asked to deal with a point of order. That is not a point of order.

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: Hon. Members have raised various other points with which I would like to deal briefly, but with which I certainly cannot deal adequately, considering their great importance. I entirely agree with hon. Members who have said that in the educational development of all races in Kenya lies the best hope of a happy mutual development. In general, Kenya has maintained


and has been accelerating the rate of development within the annual targets for education laid down in the Beecher Report, which the right hon. Member for Ebbw Vale knows very well.
During 1957–60 it is hoped to accelerate development so as to provide by 1960 in Kenya a four-year primary course for every African child whose parents wish him to go to school. The intermediate school system will also be extended, and by 1960 there should be 500 more intermediate schools than the number recommended in the Beecher Report. It is hoped that we are now well on the way to a plan whereby an eight-year course of education for every African child will eventually be possible. [Interruption.] I should have thought that hon. Members opposite who are now talking would have been reassured to know that children of that age were not in gaol.

Mr. Dugdale: rose—

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: The hon. Member for Keighley and others also raised the question of trade union development.

Mr. Dugdale: rose—

The Chairman: I have already said that if the Secretary of State does not give way, hon. Members must resume their seats.

Mr. Lennox-Boyd: As I was saying, hon. Members have raised the question of trade union and political advancement for African and other races in Kenya. I do not think that time will allow a long argument or discussion on the Coutts Report and the plans for the franchise in Kenya, but I should like to say to the right hon. Gentleman, with great earnestness, that I hope that on the question of the multiple vote and the qualifying plan for Africans in Kenya he will not use his great influence, either here or elsewhere, to get it condemned out of hand. It is an imaginative attempt to meet the present stage in African development.
It has the support not only of Mr. Coutts, the Commissioner, who was accompanied in every district by an African representative member and who depended largely on African advice wherever he went—it has not only his

and their support—but the support of all African members of the Legislature. It is a matter which is worthy of far longer discussion than we shall be able to give to it tonight, but I cannot leave him in any doubt that I regard the central feature of that scheme as being a wise and sensible one and fully in accord with the need of Africans in Kenya at the present time.
I very much hope that the smooth reception that that plan has now had will be continued in the future, and that in the elections which will take place in Africa, which will enfranchise a large number of Kenyans for the first time in this way, this scheme will prove the merits which I believe it possesses. I am sure that the thought of all of us will be with the people of all races in Kenya who, some this year and some in the early part of next year, will be arriving at another stage in Kenya's constitutional development. I say quite frankly that I think that the multiracial system of Government inspired by my predecessor, Lord Chandos, was one of the most imaginative efforts that could have been made to meet the problems of a plural society. Those who have seen that scheme working will, I think, agree that it has had a remarkably good start.
I hope that the opportunity will arise for more discussions on this most important matter, but I would like my support of this scheme and Her Majesty's Government's support of this scheme to be recognised here and in Kenya, for we have arrived at this conclusion only after a great deal of thought, and it is a conclusion to which we are now firmly attached.
The hon. Gentleman the Member for Oldham, West (Mr. Hale) and several other hon. Members raised other questions about, for example, wage rates and other vital matters in Kenya, and my hon. Friend the Member for Tynemouth (Dame Irene Ward) raised the problem of the women of Kenya, which, I recognise, is of the first importance. I will write to both hon. Members because both their contributions were, I think, of very great interest and there are points which I would like to make about them.
Finally, I should like the good will of this Committee to go out to all in Kenya, whether in the administration or in the Services or in business life, agriculture


and industry, and to offer a word of congratulation on the very remarkable improvement in Kenya's position today from when we last debated it some months ago. Above all, I think that we are entitled to say how lucky we and the people of Kenya have been in having Sir Evelyn Baring as Governor. It is a curious but rather satisfactory thought that this representative of a very great family bears the name that was born by a previous Evelyn Baring, who, a generation or more ago, did so much for the people of another part of Africa as his son is now doing for Kenya.
I echo the words of Lord Cromer's biographer:
The stars were indeed gracious when, at the beginning of great troubles, it occurred to the British Government to entrust the conduct of its policy to the hands of Sir Evelyn Baring.
I hope that I carry with me the whole Committee in congratulating him on the work that he and those under him have done during the last few difficult years.
Whereupon Motion made, and Question, That the Chairman do report Progress and ask leave to sit again—[Mr. E. Wakefield]—put and agreed to.
Committee report Progress; to sit again Tomorrow.

Orders of the Day — COPYRIGHT [MONEY]

Resolution reported,
That, for the purposes of any Act of the present Session to make new provision in respect of copyright and related matters in substitution for the provisions of the Copyright Act, 1911, and other enactments relating thereto, it is expedient to authorise—

(a) the payment out of moneys provided by Parliament of the remuneration and allowances of members, officers and servants of the Performing Right Tribunal to be established under the said Act of the present Session, and of such other expenses of that tribunal as may be determined under the said Act to be so payable;
(b) the payment into the Exchequer, in the like manner as money collected on account of customs, of fees paid in pursuance of regulations made under the said Act by the Commissioners of Customs and Excise.

Resolution agreed to.

Orders of the Day — SCHOOL MILK

10.0 p.m.

Mr. Michael Stewart: I beg to move,
That an humble Address be presented to Her Majesty, praying that the Milk and Meals (Amending) Regulations, 1956 (S.I., 1956, No. 575), dated 18th April 1956, a copy of which was laid before this House on 25th April, be annulled.
The effect of these Regulations made by the right hon. Gentleman the Minister of Education, in pursuance of his powers under Section 49 of the Education Act, is to make it possible for local authorities to supply milk tablets in place of milk if milk of the proper quality is not available at a reasonable price. As I understand the matter, before these particular Amending Regulations were made, local authorities could arrange for milk tablets instead of milk to be supplied if milk of the prescribed quality was not available. Now they are given power to do so if it is not available at a reasonable price.
We understand that the fact which has led up to these Regulations is that local authorities have found it difficult to get milk supplied to them for schools at a reasonable price. In particular, they have not been able to get the supplies delivered to them at a discount when it would have been very reasonable to have expected a discount to be granted. In many cases, they have been asked to pay the maximum retail price, and the device of using milk tablets instead of milk may be considered, if I have the facts right, as a kind of lever to induce the suppliers of milk to take a more reasonable attitude about the price at which they could supply it.
There is, in my judgment, one small procedural and legal question which I should ask. I think I am right in saying that a number of local authorities are already supplying milk tablets instead of milk, on the ground that milk is not available at a reasonable price. If I am right in that, they are in fact doing something which the Minister only now proposes to make possible for them. We should be interested to know, if that be so, how they have managed to do it. I must confess—though this is perhaps a slightly un-parliamentary view to take—that, if that is what they have done, I feel inclined to congratulate them on their enterprise. Nonetheless, this House is bound to be somewhat interested if it is


asked to approve Regulations to give people legal power to do something which, apparently, they have been doing without the legal power for some little time. Perhaps the right hon. Gentleman, or the hon. Gentleman, whoever is to reply, will be able to clear up that matter for us.
May I now turn to the question of milk tablets themselves? I must confess that, in such preparations as I have made for this debate, I have not myself consumed a milk tablet. Perhaps I ought to have done. I am sure the Parliamentary Secretary will have done so. I am, however, assured that milk tablets are nutritionally, and in every reasonable way, the proper equivalent of milk. I do not suppose they are as nice as milk, and I should not wish to recommend that the human race in general should take to milk tablets instead of milk.
We would like to be assured by the Government, first, that there is authoritative medical evidence that children who are supplied with milk tablets instead of milk are not likely to suffer in nutrition, in health or in any way, and that in every important respect these milk tablets are as good as milk.
Secondly, if milk tablets are supplied instead of milk, does a local authority make any appreciable financial saving? Thirdly, who makes the milk tablets? If one buys them instead of milk, is one buying simply from the left hand of some great dairy combine instead of from the right hand? Will local authorities find when purchasing milk tablets that, although it may not be so noticeable, they are being charged more than a reasonable price? We are under the impression that local authorities have been purchasing milk tablets instead of milk in order, very properly, to avoid being charged an unreasonable price for milk. Are they succeeding or is there danger of their also being charged an unreasonable price for the milk tablets?
I come now to the most important point raised by the Regulations. I have argued—I do not think this is in dispute—that one purpose, at least, of resorting to milk tablets is to try to induce a more reasonable attitude on the part of the suppliers of milk. It would be interesting to know—I hope the Government will be able to tell us—whether in

recent months there has been any sign that some of the suppliers of milk, particularly in the great cities, are prepared to take a more reasonable attitude as to the price they charge. Has the emergence of the milk tablet over the horizon caused suppliers to modify their view as to the price they should charge for milk?
In that connection, it is worth while looking at the record of the facts, which, thanks to the diligence of the Public Accounts Committee, the House is able to do. I shall rehearse the facts briefly, because hon. Members who are interested can get the full record in the Reports of the Public Accounts Committee. The matter was first raised by that Committee in its Reports in the year 1951–52. The Committee commented on the fact that many local education authorities were unable to get a discount for bulk supplies of milk and contrasted this fact with the advantage apparently enjoyed by hospitals when buying milk in large quantities. The Public Accounts Committee, as was proper, drew the attention of Parliament, and so of the nation, to this problem.
Time passed, and in October, 1954, there passed to the local authorities the responsibility for putting out the contracts and determining by whom milk should be supplied to the schools. The Public Accounts Committee, however, looked at the matter again in May, 1955, when it appeared that of all the milk supplied for schoolchildren, only one-quarter was being supplied in conditions in which a discount was allowed. The remarkable thing was that it was mainly the rural education authorities who had been able to get a discount.
I stress that for this reason. It has, I believe, been suggested that if a dairy is required to supply milk, as schools frequently require it, in bottles of one-third of a pint, this peculiar requirement makes it difficult to grant a discount. If rural suppliers, in places where the schools are small and the milk may have to be carried quite a considerable distance from the dairy to the school, can in many instances manage to do it at a discount, why can it not be done by a great urban supplier, who probably does not have to take the milk the same distance and who can send it in large consignments to schools which are commonly larger than the rural schools?
In the North Riding of Yorkshire, for example. 87 per cent. of the milk is supplied at a discount. The discount varies from small amounts up to about 5½ per cent. The average figure, on all milk on which a discount is granted, appears to be slightly less than 4 per cent., and if we look down the list in the Report of the Public Accounts Committee, we shall find not only the outstanding figure I mentioned for that particular rural area, but that in one rural area after another a very considerable proportion of the milk is provided, presumably by public-spirited suppliers or suppliers able to manage their businesses competently at a discount.
We must contrast that with the position in some of the great urban areas. In Manchester, it happened, curiously enough, that only one tenderer tendered for each particular school, so that the local authority then found itself with no competition for tenders. It had carefully organised the way in which the contracts were asked for with the deliberate intent of trying to encourage competition amongst suppliers, but the suppliers had their own views about that and only one tender was made for each school. In Birmingham, six firms supplied the whole city. When, not long ago, fresh tenders were invited, each firm tendered simply for the schools for which it had tendered before. There seemed to be some kind of gentlemen's agreement not to poach on schools already being supplied by another supplier.
In Sheffield, again, when new tenders were asked for, only two firms came forward. They were, remarkably enough, the two firms which exclusively had been supplying the children of Sheffield with milk previously. In Newcastle-upon-Tyne, only four firms covered the whole city, and all charged the maximum retail price. In London, where one would have thought that, owing to the size of the schools and the density of the population, it ought not to have been difficult to have been at least as generous as in the North Riding of Yorkshire, 75 per cent. of the milk supplied to school children is supplied by four great concerns. All of them charge the maximum retail price and none of them grants a discount.

Mr. E. Partridge: What about the co-operatives?

Mr. Stewart: There are two cooperatives and two ordinary enterprises, and the hon. Member can, if he reads the Report of the Public Accounts Committee, get the names of the suppliers and of the cities I have mentioned, and will find it a very valuable exercise.
The sum of money involved is one not to be neglected. I mentioned that in May, 1955, according to the Report of the Public Accounts Committee, one quarter of all the milk supplied to school children was supplied at a discount. The size of the discount on the average was such that this meant a saving of £90,000, If we could get all milk supplied at about that same average amount of discount, that would save a further £270,000, which is substantially more than the Government are proposing to save by what I can only characterise as the rather mean and distasteful economy of telling the children in the nursery schools that in future they are to have only one-third of a pint of milk instead of two-thirds of a pint, or that the service of milk is to be cut off at the weekends and holidays. I am sorry that the Government should have introduced this rather nasty little economy at a time when it was reasonable to suppose, with the possibility of an extension of the use of milk tablets, that much more substantial savings could have been obtained if, one way or another, the great suppliers could have been induced to supply their milk at a discount.
The hon. Gentleman who is to reply will remember that, at the beginning, addressed to him one procedural question and went on to put questions about milk tablets. I now want to put one other important question in addition. What has he to report since we last heard of this matter from the publication of the Committee's Report as to any success that may have been achieved, by one way or another, in inducing the suppliers of milk to take a more reasonable attitude and supply it at a discount, which some of the more enterprising and public-spirited suppliers are able to do?

10.15 p.m.

Dr. Horace King: I beg to second the Motion.
My hon. Friend the Member for Fulham (Mr. M. Stewart) has spoken with his usual ability. I do not like these Regulations, but I sympathise with the


motives of the Government in bringing them forward. There is no doubt that the evil which these Regulations seek to combat exists. Our schools are supplied with milk by a trade which is gradually and inevitably being concentrated in fewer and fewer hands.
One of the arguments for the concentration of this trade, as of anything else, is that we should get out of it efficiency on the one hand and cheapness on the other. Certainly milk is being supplied to our school-children today under far more scientific and wholesome conditions than have ever prevailed before in the country, and the model dairies of England are models to the world, but at the same time we are not getting the benefit of the cheapness we have a right to expect from this concentration. The nation and the local education authorities are being exploited by those who sell school milk, and at the present the local authorities are engaged in a battle to get what they regard as fair terms from the distributors of milk.
I want to give the House an example from the local education authority of which I am a member, the Hampshire County Council. In May, 1955, of the 417 of our schools which were supplied with milk, only 42 were given any discount, 375 schools being charged the maximum permitted retail controlled price of milk. My council was concerned about this, and when the contracts came to an end it threw them open to tender, and the various suppliers of milk, who had had a long run and a regular run, were faced with the prospect of losing custom through competition, and for the first time began to offer discounts, which ranged from 1½ per cent. to as much as I0 per cent.
The result is that this year only 86 of our schools are paying the maximum controlled retail price of milk, and 338 schools are being supplied on discount terms, 168 of them getting 2½ per cent. discount, 93 a 5 per cent. discount. So we are saving at the moment about 3 per cent. on our milk bill for our schools. However, there are still 86 of our schools where we cannot get the distributors to supply milk except at the maximum controlled retail price.
Though this is an improvement, the position is far from satisfactory. In many

cases we were not offered any discount at all until the distributors discovered that we would not make firm contracts with them unless they gave a discount, and when they noticed that we were giving three-year contracts to firms giving discount some which had not offered it before began to. Besides, tendering for milk, like tendering for everything else for local authorities, is not really competitive. The discounts offered by various distributors very often turn out to be suspiciously alike, and almost identical, and where there is only one distributor, where monopoly conditions obtain, we fail to obtain any discount at all.
I want to be fair to the milk distributors. When we had to ask them in war-time to supply those one-third pint milk bottles, they had to invest a fair amount of money in new plant, and they did a public, national service. I think they have had their reward for that. I admit, too, that some of the village schools are tiny and that transport difficulties probably make it impossible for us to get milk under the maximum controlled retail price. However, after every allowance has been made, I believe the country has been and is still being fleeced by the distributors of milk.
We are with the Minister in anything he does to secure true economy; that is something which will not hurt our children. Milk is plentiful. More milk is being produced today than ever before in the history of the country. There is no reason why, in conditions of utter plenty, we should have scarcity prices charged for the milk for our children. But having said that, I do not like the way the Government have chosen to fight the milk distributors.
Only recently the teachers have said that they did not want to strike because they did not want to hurt the children, and farm workers have refused to go on strike because they did not want to hurt the nation's food supply. I am not sure that in these Regulations we are not giving the Minister a weapon which can hurt some of our children. If we are going to use the threat of supplying milk tablets and, indeed, supply milk tablets as the only means of bringing milk distributors to heel, we are putting our children in the front line of battle and we face the possibility of a dangerous setback in milk consumption by our children.

Mr. John Arbuthnot: What alternative has the hon. Member to suggest? We all want to see a reasonable price charged for milk.

Dr. King: Before answering the hon. Member, I want to say that I believe that free milk for children is one of the glories of the Welfare State. Its justification we can see any moment we look at the healthy children of our land, and I am worried about anything which would interfere with the healthy, precious habit of milk drinking which has grown up in our schools. Therefore, I would urge the Government to find other ways of tackling the milk combines.
It is outside the scope of this narrow debate on the Regulations to go at length into the question of how we ought to tackle the problem of the milk combines when we think prices are unreasonable. I am quite frank about it. I believe that we should control the price of milk, if necessary, and should say to the milk combines that they do not get the orders from our schools unless they supply the milk at a reasonable discount. But I beg the Minister to have second thoughts about these Regulations lest he should do something which might damage the health of some of our children.

10.23 p.m.

Sir Charles Taylor: As hon. Members may know, I am interested in the milk industry. I declare that interest now, and I should not have intervened in the debate but for the lamentable ignorance of the milk industry which has been displayed by the hon. Member for Fulham (Mr. M. Stewart) and the hon. Member for Itchen (Dr. King). The milk industry is entirely controlled at the moment as to the buying prices for the raw material and the selling prices. The margin is fixed by the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food as a fair margin, based upon costings taken over the whole of the milk industry. If the Ministry fixes what it considers as a fair margin of profit, having sent top-class accountants to every business in the country to find out what was a fair margin to give to the retail milk industry, is it right that another Government Department should say, "We think that the profit is too great and we are going to ask for a discount"?

Dr. King: The hon. Gentleman's case would be perfect if it were not for the fact that almost every milk distributor at the present moment is proving the fallacy of his argument by selling milk to local education authorities at a discount ranging from 1 to 10 per cent.

Sir C. Taylor: That may be, but I am not going to defend it. I think that is dishonest, because if a discount is given to schools throughout the country it reflects on the overall margin allowed to the industry and such a discount is taken into consideration in the costings and margins allowed to the retailers. Therefore, if certain retailers give a discount in order to get a contract with a local authority, and as that discount is taken into consideration in the overall costings, it means that it is made up in one form or another by the taxpayer or by whoever it is who makes up the margins. It is easy for people to say that they will give a discount to such and such a local education authority, because they know perfectly well that in the costings carried out in the industry that is eventually going to be taken care of.
The hon. Gentleman who seconded the Motion talked about the great milk combines. The greatest milk combine in the country is the co-operative societies. Do they cut the price of school milk? Of course they do, but then the co-operative societies sell everything from coffins to coal to milk all from one source. That is rather hard on the small milk retailer who does not also sell coffins and coal.
The supply of school milk in ⅓-pint bottles is a very tiresome business to the average milk retailer. The bottle probably costs as much, if not more, than its contents. The retailer has to carry these ⅓-pint bottles to the schools and has to have a special bottling machine to fill them. Quite frankly, they are a dead loss.
As far as tenders are concerned, I think that I made myself quite clear earlier when I said that the margin on the sale of retail milk, the buying of the raw product and the selling of the bottled product, are all controlled by Government order. Is it not right and reasonable that if there are five or six milk retailers in one area, and because the margins are controlled, they should all tender the same price for school milk? As I say, if


they do riot, that is taken into consideration in the costings of the industry as a whole and the price is made up in the costings.
I should like to know how much school milk is not drunk by the children but is poured down the drain or otherwise wasted, because the retail milk businesses throughout the country do their best in supplying these ⅓-pint bottles of milk to the schools. I believe that a great deal of this milk is wasted. I beg the Government to pay much closer attention to the amount of milk wasted. Finally, fresh milk is the best food in the world—that may be special pleading—and it is far better than milk tablets.

10.30 p.m.

Mr. F. H. Hayman: The only point on which I agree with the hon. Member for Eastbourne (Sir C. Taylor) was his last statement, that good milk is far better than milk tablets. It is the first time I have heard it pleaded that Express Dairies and other big milk firms are thriving on their losses. I have heard cynical jokes about farmers thriving on their losses, but that is the first time I have heard that about milk distributors.
I have had considerable experience of the supply of milk to schools, and my experience has been that the wastage of milk is not very great. Hon. and right hon. Members will find that in the Tea Room of this House the habit of drinking milk, probably started in school, is continued. I am alarmed that the Minister should have authorised the extended use of milk tablets. It may have a second purpose, to force down the price of milk. In country districts with small schools it may be impossible to get a supplier when the number in a school is only between 30 and 70 children and where the school is miles from the distributing centre. If the local authority insists, as it should, on pasteurised milk, then it often becomes very difficult to get a proper supply of milk to such a school. However, the Regulations are mainly directed against the big towns, and the big distributors of milk should be able to supply schools of between 300 and 1,000 children and give a discount in those cases.
I am sorry that no spokesman from the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and

Food is present to deal with the point about the general price allowed to the distributors being so rigged as to balance the schools against the individual householder, but the very fact that up to one quarter of the supplies to schools are supplied at a discount can be set against that argument of the hon. Member for Eastbourne. In country areas, I doubt whether it can be done quite so readily, unless the county authority allows milk which is not pasteurised to be supplied. If it can be done in no other way, I suggest that the Minister seeks power to enable local authorities in big towns to become distributors themselves.

10.35 p.m.

Sir Patrick Spens: I do not know whether I ought to declare an interest. The headquarters of one of the big distributing organisations is in my constituency, and it has done me the honour of asking me to become a patron. As such, I presided at a conference of a very large number of milk distributors at Scarborough at the beginning of last week. I do not for a moment pretend to have the knowledge of my hon. Friend the Member for Eastbourne (Sir C. Taylor) about the milk distributing trade, but I have naturally had to inquire as closely as possible into this question which is exercising all our minds.
As I understand the situation, the country does not realise that the milk industry is completely controlled as regards the price which it has to pay, the producer from whom it must buy its milk, and the maximum price at which it has to sell it. Before the Ministry of Education came into this question, the whole organisation was in the hands of the Ministry of Food, which fixed the margins at which milk should be sold. It was arranged that the ordinary retail price should be paid by schools so that distributors could sell to the public at the authorised price. When the Ministry of Education took over the supply of milk to schools, a new factor came into the industry, because the Ministry decided to try to obtain discounts on the sale of milk to schools.
The reaction of the retailers was at once to say, "If you ask us to accept less than we were authorised to receive by the Ministry of Food, you put us into a difficulty about our margins." From


what I heard at Scarborough, the retailers are trying in every way to modernise and rationalise their industry, such as in transport and in machinery for bottling, delivery and everything else. In that way, they hope to have a larger margin. It is unfair to expect them to give up the margin that they were receiving on the supply of milk to schools and not have it made good in any other way. That is what the Ministry of Education is asking them to do.
My view is that the matter has not been thought out by the Ministry of Education and the Ministry of Agriculture and that the Ministry of Education is going ahead of the Ministry of Agriculture in this matter. I am sorry not to see a member of the Ministry of Agriculture here tonight—I see that he has just entered the Chamber and I am delighted to see him. This is a matter which the two Departments should get down to with the industry.
I assure the House from my own personal knowledge, from what I listened to for two days at Scarborough last week, that the retailers of milk are determined by every modern improvisation to make the delivery and distribution of milk as up-to-date and as cheap as possible. I believe that our delivery and distribution of milk are better than those of any other country in Europe. No other country that I know gets its milk delivered in the way that we do in this country. To blame the distributors for not offering discounts to schools without providing a way by which they can get them back is, as my hon. Friend the Member for Eastbourne pointed out, unsound.
I hope that the two Ministries will put their heads together so that we shall have a definite arrangement in this controlled industry, as a result of which the Ministry of Education will be satisfied with the prices that it pays. I hope the result will not be that ordinary householders will have to pay more for their milk.

10.40 p.m.

Mr. John Arbuthnot: I think that perhaps I am the only Member of the Public Accounts Committee in the House at present. I welcome the support which has been given to my right hon. Friend the Minister of Education by hon. Members for the efforts which the Ministry is making to ensure that public money

is not wasted and that proper economy is exercised.
I cannot feel that it is a reasonable line of argument to suggest that because the Ministry of Food, when it was in charge of these matters, did not press for an economy in public spending, the Ministry of Education should follow the same line. I am convinced that my right hon. Friend the Minister of Education is absolutely right in trying to see that more public money is not spent than is absolutely necessary, subject to the overriding desire of us all to see that the children are kept in the good health to which hon. Members have referred.
My hon. Friend the Member for Eastbourne (Sir C. Taylor), if he will forgive me saying so, was wholly inaccurate when he said that the costings of milk to schools were taken into account in the fixing of prices by the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. That he was wrong is clearly shown by the fact that the same proportion of schools does not exist throughout the whole country. When the Ministry of Agriculture fixed prices for milk, it was for the normal distribution from door to door. The fact that milk is being distributed in large quantities to schools should enable milk distributors to allow a reasonable discount to the Ministry of Education. The fact that many distributors of milk—particularly, as has been pointed out, in the rural areas—are giving discount of varied amonts shows that it can be done.
One would have thought on an objective view of the matter that, where there is a concentrated population as in the urban areas, there would be a larger discount than in the more scattered areas where the cost of distribution is higher and the size of individual schools is smaller. I welcome the Regulations which the Ministry of Education has brought forward—not that we want to see the use of milk tablets extended, nor do we want even to see it continued, but we want the authorities which are buying milk in large quantities for schools to be given a fair deal by milk distributors.

10.42 p.m.

Mr. Harold Gurden: Perhaps to some extent I am the nigger in the woodpile in this matter, for it was I alone who thought of the idea, many years ago, of bottling milk for consumption in schools. That scheme was


wholly self-supporting for many years, but many of us who were in the trade at the time—I do not have to declare an interest because I am not now in the business—tried very hard to retain the price of ld. per bottle. I think that was in 1930 or thereabouts.
It was when the Government decided to subsidise that scheme and to extend it throughout the country that the trouble arose. It has been mentioned that the maximum price of milk to the consumer ought not wholly to apply to schools because of the difference in quantity in delivery. It is true that the delivery cost represents a very large part of the trouble. As practical men, we in the business found it very difficult to fill three bottles of milk instead of one and to maintain the same price. It was proved that that could only be done if one had a compensating value in a high-quantity delivery; but when the Ministry of Education expected the milk distributors to go to remote districts, covering many miles to deliver small quantities—100 or 200 bottles of milk—it became uneconomic.
Let us recognise at once that the dairy trade has done a very fine job in trying to maintain a full service throughout the country, or almost throughout it, certainly at a loss in the case of deliveries to many schools. In many instances there was, and is, a loss. Not only private companies are involved in this distribution, for probably half the school milk in this country is distributed by co-operative societies. I know that in some towns the co-operative societies do not do much of it, but in others they do nearly all of it. The co-operative societies have clearly shown in some cases that they deliver milk to schools at a loss. In fact. the household consumer has to subsidise the service.
I do not deny that in such large cities as Birmingham, Manchester and Liverpool it may be possible to give a discount to some of the larger schools; I believe it is possible. Nevertheless, the dairy industry must look at the service as a whole, and say, "If we give a discount in these congested areas where we save money on delivery, what about the outlying districts and the schools being built in the remote areas?" They must balance the service in their balance sheet over a long period,

because of the way in which the maximum price control operates.
There ought to be a separate controlled price for school milk—a higher maximum price. I believe that the Ministry of Education would benefit from that, because they would then receive a discount on the more economic deliveries, although they might have to pay 2½ per cent. or 5 per cent. more in the case of the country schools. This problem is brought about by having only one controlled price instead of several levels for the different types of milk distribution.

Mr. Hayman: Will the hon. Member comment on the fact that distribution in the big towns, which he admits is more economic, is made by other people than those operating in the country districts, where distribution is uneconomic?

Mr. Gurden: Those very distributors saddle themselves with the distribution of milk in outlying areas surrounding the towns. They also supply other smaller dairymen with school milk at a loss in order that a good service may be given and that the schools shall not be without milk. When I was a director of a company which originally started this business of bottling milk for schools, we bottled nearly a million bottles a year at a loss in order that the schools should not go short of milk and have to resort to milk tablets. We did that in order that the scheme should, as far as possible, be a success throughout the country.

10.50 p.m.

The Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Education (Mr. Dennis Vosper): I welcome this opportunity of explaining to the House the circumstances which have necessitated the laying of these Regulations and of saying a few words about the now celebrated milk tablets. I also welcome the moderate and helpful way in which the hon. Member for Fulham (Mr. M. Stewart) moved the Motion. My only regret, as he probably realises, relates to his reference to any reduction of milk for nursery schools, which can be, and probably will be debated on another occasion. He omitted to say that the vast majority of children under five are in nursery classes where the allowance is and always has been one-third of a pint in addition to the cheap milk provided


by my right hon. Friend the Minister of Health.
I think it is generally realised by the House that this is not an attempt to deprive the children of their milk, but rather the opposite. It is a small Measure necessary, I believe, to ensure the continuance of school milk. I think that dried milk and milk tablets can play a useful, if limited, part in the provision of school milk, and I hope—and I am sure that it will be so—that hon. Members will not seek to limit their use by seeking to annul the Statutory Instrument.
As the hon. Member for Fulham told the House, the responsibility for the provision of school milk is derived from Section 49 of the 1944 Education Act and is exercised by Regulation. I mention that because ever since 1945 my right hon. Friend has been able to approve, by Regulation, dried milk where liquid milk is not available. There is, therefore, nothing new about that provision at all. Again, two years ago, when the milk tablet was introduced, my right hon. Friend amended the Regulations so as to be able to approve the use of milk tablets or of dried milk where liquid milk was not available. I should, therefore, like to take this opportunity of saying just a word about the milk tablet, about which the hon. Member asked me.
I hope that no hon. Member who is listening to this debate confuses the milk tablet with the malted milk tablet. It so happens that they are, I think, made by the same makers, but there is otherwise little resemblance between them. I am sorry that the hon. Gentleman has not had the experience of consuming one of these tablets, and I assure him that he would be satisfied in the course of a very few minutes. Only the rules of order prevent me taking immediate action to put him right on that particular point.

Sir C. Taylor: Will my hon. Friend put one in the Library?

Mr. Vosper: The initiative for the preparation and production of the milk tablet was taken by the Ministry of Food some years ago—possibly when the hon. Member for Sunderland, North (Mr. Willey) was a member of that Department. In fact, it was produced as a satisfactory commodity only about two

years ago, and ten tablets, contained in one packet, are equivalent to one-third of a pint of milk.
The hon. Gentleman asked for an assurance that the tablet was nutritionally equal to liquid milk. I can give him that assurance. It has the approval of the Ministry of Food. It is much more attractive to school children than is dried milk, and, for some children, more attractive than liquid milk. Its cost is no greater, but little less, than that of liquid or dried milk. The tablets contain the full food value of milk, less water. If necessary, I could give the comparative constituents of dried milk, milk tablets and liquid milk.
I think that there has, on occasion, been criticism of the milk tablet in certain schools, but we have no positive evidence that they have been much abused. I should therefore like to assure the hon. Gentleman and the House that the milk tablet is a satisfactory alternative, although I would not put it much higher than that. When originally introduced, the tablets were used to supply those schools which, because of their isolation, were still unable to get a supply of liquid milk.
Then, again, a new feature was introduced, which has been the principal subject of this debate—the dispute, if I may so call it, although I hope that it will no longer be a dispute—arising out of the transfer of responsibility for the supply of milk from my right hon. Friend the Minister of Food to my right hon. Friend the Minister of Education. I think that hon. Members who have taken part in this debate have accurately recounted the story of that dispute.
When my right hon. Friend took over the supply of milk, it was thought reasonable to expect a discount on bulk supply, as indeed was then the case with hospitals and other institutions. This was supported by the Public Accounts Committee, who had reported unfavourably some years ago, in the 1952–1953 Report, about the absence of competitive tendering. Local education authorities were therefore expected, through normal tendering procedure, to secure reasonable terms for the supply of milk.
As has been said. their original efforts to secure better prices met with organised resistance, and this was commented upon in the Third Report of the Public


Accounts Committee in the Session 1955–1956. I think I should read this extract, which is particularly relevant to this debate:
Your Committee are therefore greatly concerned to learn that when efforts were at last made to obtain competitive tenders there should be widespread and concerted opposition from the trade. They consider this unwillingness to co-operate with local education authorities in a service of such undoubted value to the children of the country to be most regrettable and they are glad to note the stand taken by the Departments concerned and the local authorities. Your Committee recommend that all possible steps should be taken to secure that milk is supplied to schools at genuinely competitive prices.
That Report was sent to local authorities towards the end of last year, together with a covering letter or circular saying that my right hon. Friend would give them support in any action they thought fit to take, even to the extent of stopping the supplies of school milk. I am glad to say that that has not been necessary.
I would emphasise that methods of securing reductions were being employed, and it would be wrong to think that the milk tablet was thought to be, or proved to be, the only method. I was asked by the hon. Member for Fulham, and I think by other hon. Members, what progress has been made. I am glad to say that the progress I can report is extremely favourable. The position in the counties, for some rather inexplicable reason, has always been favourable. I can at present give the House no further information about the counties, but in a few weeks' time I hope it will be possible to make a further report on them.
So far as the county boroughs are concerned, in May, 1955, of 83 county boroughs, 55 were having to pay the maximum retail price for all their milk supplies. In May, 1956, a year later. only two county boroughs were having to pay the maximum retail price for all their milk, and a further three were having to pay the maximum retail price for a considerable proportion of their milk. I am therefore able to report considerable progress, and I do not for a moment put it down entirely or even in a large part to the milk tablets, or even to any threat to use them—but to the fact that there has been considered and sensible negotiation

between local authorities and the milk trade.
The hon. Member mentioned London, I think a discount has been obtained, or is about to be agreed, in the London area. I had not wished to take sides in what can be termed "a dispute," for the reason that in the last three or four months there have been such favourable developments, and I have every reason to believe that progress will be continued.
The saving, so far as can be ascertained at the moment, is in the neighbourhood of £250,000, but I hope it will be larger than that, and about 50 per cent. of the schools are now getting milk at discount. The contribution made to this progress by the milk tablet is hard to ascertain. Only eight local authorities have used the tablet for this purpose, none of them for a period exceeding three months, most of them for an average of four or five weeks. The effects on some of the other authorities may have been considerable.
My hon. Friend the Member for Eastbourne (Sir C. Taylor) made a point of some substance when he spoke of margins. I quite agree that there is some substance in that argument. Subsidy arrangements, as he probably knows better than I do, are very complicated. Any reduction in the price of school milk would be taken into account in the periodical review of the retail margin—but that is any general reduction in price. and it certainly would not apply to any individual discounts.
There is of course no guarantee that the arrangements for fixing margins will continue indefinitely, and in any event it is surely desirable that the arrangements of local authorities for the purchase of school milk should be put on a normal commercial basis, in common with their purchase of other commodities. I see no reason to penalise the enterprising and efficient retailer or distributor who wishes to supply milk at a discount, as many have done.
Perhaps the best supporting evidence for my argument is that these negotiations throughout have been conducted by my right hon. Friend together with his right hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. Therefore, it would be wrong to suggest, as my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kensington, South (Sir P. Spens) seemed


to suggest, that there was a difference of opinion on this matter between Government Departments.
The hon. Member for Fulham asked a legal question, namely, how it was that eight local authorities had been able to supply milk tablets where milk supplies were not available at a reasonable price, and only now was it necessary to introduce a Statutory Instrument to that effect. The original Regulations permitted the use of tablets if satisfactory fresh milk was not available, but made no reference to the price on the grounds that the obligation to supply milk could not be held to apply regardless of cost. If, therefore, the price asked was unreasonable, the authority could properly suspend supplies; fresh milk would not be available, and it would be, and was indeed, proper to supply dried milk or tablets instead. All the eight local education authorities acted under that power, and their action was confirmed by my right hon. Friend and has not been challenged.

Mr. M. Stewart: If that explanation is correct, as I am sure it is, I do not quite see why these Regulations are necessary at all.

Mr. Vosper: I was coming to that point. The reason is simply this. There were one or two local authorities in the country which were reluctant to use this power unless the Regulations were strengthened to make certain that their action was not capable of being challenged in the courts. For that reason, to put the matter beyond all doubt, the additional words, bringing in a reference to "reasonable cost," have been introduced and are in the Regulations laid before the House. The Regulations before the House do that, and only that, and I hope that the Explanatory Note makes that clear.
I hope that these Regulations may be redundant in the sense that no local authority may need to make use of them. If that is so, I think that hon. Members who have taken part in this debate will be pleased, because it is their wish, as it is that of my right hon. Friend, that the supply of liquid milk shall be available to all school children at a reasonable cost. That is my right hon. Friend's wish, and he hopes, and has hoped for some time—and his hope has in part

been realised—that wise counsels will prevail and make recourse to this Instrument unnecessary.
Now that my right hon. Friend knows that my right hon. and learned Friend the Member for Kensington, South has joined the counsels of the milk distributors, I feel that this procedure will be accelerated. If that does not happen, it may be necessary from time to time to appeal for the use of tablets of dried milk, not in preference to liquid milk, but as an adequate alternative substitute to that of paying an unreasonable price.

Sir C. Taylor: My hon. Friend has not dealt with the case of the buying price and the selling price of liquid milk being fixed. If a margin is allowed to a milk retailer as a fair and reasonable margin, can my hon. Friend say that it is an unreasonable price if the same price is being charged to the schools throughout the country? I submit that he is now suggesting that these Regulations are a threat to the milk retailers.

Mr. Vosper: To the best of my belief, the margin fixed for the milk distributor is fixed on a national, or at least a regional basis, and there is nothing to stop the enterprising or efficient distributor from seeking to supply milk at a discount, as many of them have wished to do.

Sir C. Taylor: My hon. Friend spoke of supplying milk in bulk. May I draw attention to what he means by "bulk"? It means supplying large quantities of milk in small one-third pint bottles, for which the trade has had to install special bottling machines at great cost. It is much more expensive than supplying milk in one-pint bottles.

Mr. Vosper: I appreciate that. Some allowance is made for one-third pint bottles and for the use of straws. For that reason it is not always possible to expect the same discount as is allowed for hospitals which receive their supply in bulk, but many distributors are now supplying milk at a discount. Under existing circumstances this is taken into account when the margin is fixed, and if there is a general reduction in the price of school milk it might be that the margin would have to be adjusted. But it was not reasonable to expect for ever a continuation of this state of affairs and it was therefore with the support of my right


hon. Friend the Minister of Agriculture that we reverted to more competitive terms.
I am sorry that my hon. Friend the Member for Eastbourne is not in agreement with me on this matter, because I very much appreciated the change of opinion amongst his colleagues in recent months. I hope that without the use or even the threat of the use of these Regulations there will be a further development during the coming months. For this reason I hope that the hon. Member for Fulham will accept my explanation and my assurance, if he needs it, that this is not an attempt to supplant fresh milk, and will withdraw the Motion.

11.8 p.m.

Mr. Frederick Willey: I am sure that the House will join with me in expressing appreciation of the attendance of the Minister of Education, the Minister of Health, and the Joint Parliamentary Secretary to the Ministry of Agriculture, Fisheries and Food. I differ from my hon. Friend the Member for Falmouth and Camborne (Mr. Hayman) in that I think that it would be unreasonable to expect the Minister of Agriculture to attend, because we know that he has a full-time job in soothing the National Farmers' Union. Personally, I am well content with the attendance of his Parliamentary Secretary.
I share the view of my hon. Friend the Member for Southampton, Itchen (Dr. King). I do not like the use of tablets for the purpose for which they are being used in this case. It is clear now that the Parliamentary Secretary is not a strong advocate of their use. I think that they are very properly used in cases to which the hon. Gentleman referred, where they are better for the individual child and in the case of isolated schools. I agree with the hon. Gentleman that the sooner the present threat of their use is dispensed with the better for us all.
I quarrel with the Parliamentary Secretary about one thing. We need not debate it tonight, because we shall have other opportunities. It is the Ministry's mean, shabby action in respect of nursery schools. I join with the hon. Gentleman in his appeal to the dairymen. In the

past I have had friendly associations with them. I have a great admiration for what they did and the way in which they worked together during the war. I appeal to them to allow, and not obstruct, the introduction of a little initiative in distribution. There is far too much ossification in distribution. On the contrary, we should all welcome these variations. If a case were made out for higher distribution costs in particular cases it would be better to meet those costs in individual cases rather than to take the attitude that all the tenders must be the same.
The Parliamentary Secretary has, at all events, given the House a fair interim report. It is unfortunate that the Government have had to go to this length to induce such a report. It is quite clear that we now have more flexibility in the distribution of milk to schools. I hope that this debate and the good offices of the right hon. and learned Member for Kensington, South (Sir P. Spens) in the responsible office which he holds will help us to get over this deadlock. I trust, therefore, that my hon. Friend the Member for Fulham (Mr. M. Stewart) will be able to accept what the Parliamentary Secretary has said as sufficient justification for us not forcing the matter to a Division.
I will not pursue this matter any further tonight, but I want to call the attention of the Parliamentary Secretary to the falling away in the consumption of milk in schools. I concede at once that it is a matter about which it is too early to be dogmatic, but I hope that the hon. Gentleman will look seriously at it and, if necessary, see that his Ministry takes action to encourage the fullest possible use of the milk-in-schools scheme.
As far as the subject that has engaged most of our attention tonight is concerned, I hope that the matter can be settled in a satisfactory way without resort to tablets. I trust that it will be settled by the distributors realising that they should accept the free winds of competition in the field of distribution, and that in a few months' time, when we press the Parliamentary Secretary for a further report he will be able to say that we have rid ourselves of this unfortunate dispute between the Ministry and the distributors.

Mr. M. Stewart: In view of the explanation so admirably given by the Parliamentary Secretary, in which he was able to tell us that many of the distributors are now doing what the hon. Member for Eastbourne (Sir C. Taylor) tried to demonstrate was impossible, I beg to ask leave to withdraw the Motion.

Motion, by leave, withdrawn.

Orders of the Day — HOUSING (HILLHEAD QUARRY, WICK)

Motion made and Question proposed, That this House do now adjourn. [Mr. Godber.]

11.12 p.m.

Sir David Robertson: I shall, I hope, facilitate the understanding by hon. Members of the deplorable situation which exists in Hillhead Quarry, Wick, if I tell the House the two main causes of it. Caithness missed the great upsurge of building in Scotland in the nineteenth century. Our population was not increasing, but decreasing. The flood tide of emigration to the Lowlands, to England and overseas was prevailing and there was not the need to build houses. For that reason the majority of the houses in the county of Caithness, including the two burghs, are probably over two centuries old.
The slum clearance scheme published in February by the Secretary of State for Scotland records the fact that there are 4,046 houses in rural Caithness, that is, in the county council area, of which 1,400 are deemed to be unfit for human habitation. That will give the House some idea of the state of housing in Caithness. When I tell the House that there are now more families awaiting rehousing in the principal Burgh of Wick than the total number of houses built since the end of the war, and that in the smaller Burgh of Thurso there are as many families still awaiting rehousing as there have been houses built since 1945 it will realise the difficulties of the housing situation which has brought about this Hillhead Quarry situation.
That is the first reason. The second reason is that the nomadic people who live in this quarry under such distressing conditions are tinkers. They are among the oldest of all the races which make up

the Caithness population. They have been there for centuries longer than my own family, and no one quite knows who they are. They may be of gipsy origin or they may be an outcast clan, which is quite feasible. But the sad thing is that for centuries they have been regarded as an inferior people.
They look the same as other people and it would be difficult for anyone other than an expert to pick out a tinker family. They are dark. They have acquiline features. So do many others of the Celtic races. They have been regarded as an inferior people. In the early days they lived in caves on the shore. They earned a living as tinsmiths, going out into the country in caravans when the better weather came, mending pots and pans. During the war, with its demand for labour, they came into the towns and settled. They always go into the towns in winter. I think that was usual with the gipsies in England, and in other parts also. In the summer they took to the road again.
There is still a disposition among many people to regard them as inferior, and to deny them rights to which they are entitled. There is nothing in the Housing Acts of Scotland or England which says that a family, because it belongs to the tinker clan, should not be rehoused. The local authorities have shown, I think, in the Halkirk case, that they are prepared to face unpopularity among their constituents to do something which a majority of the public in Caithness does not want to come about, namely, to rehouse tinkers with other people. I hope that they will continue to demonstrate that attitude, irrespective of whether it is popular or not.
It is interesting to read, in the John o' Groats Journal, issued this week, comments by a columnist having the name, "Norseman," under the heading, "Colour Bar." He writes,
At the meeting which granted the house to the Halkirk tinker family, one of the Councillors remarked that 'it would be a most unpopular decision'.
He goes on to say,
Much the same was said some time ago when tinkers were housed at Lybster. Such remarks are fully justified, for they represent the simple truth. No locality in Caithness wants a tinker family housed in their midst.
That is a sad state of affairs. I believe it to be true.
The matter was first publicised when, on 5th March, the British Legion met in Wick and reported that there were six families, comprising twelve adults and fourteen children, living in conditions of squalor in huts which were six, seven, or eight feet long, a few feet wide, and which had low roofs. The British Legion is interested because four of the fathers are ex-Service men. The huts are composed of canvas sections supported on four posts, with an occasional crossmember. They are dilapidated. They have no ventilation, and are without sanitation. The nearest water is three-quarters of a mile away, according to one report, and 600 yards away according to another. The huts are round the edge of the quarry, in the centre of which is a large pond. That pond is a cesspool. For years all kinds of filth have been thrown into it, and the conditions are almost indescribable.
As soon as the House rose at Easter, I visited the site. That was on Good Friday. I found everything which the British Legion reported, which was widely publicised in the Scottish newspapers, and which brought me a flood of letters objecting to such conditions in this country. Every decent man must object. We had a priest of the Church of England in the House yesterday who has raised an outcry, may be a proper outcry, about conditions in Shanty Town in Johannesburg. I imagine that they are bad, but from pictures that I have seen I would not compare them with the conditions at Wick. I have been in the Cape Flats district of Cape Town where the coloured people live. The conditions there are bad, but not as bad as at Wick. That will give the House an impression of the seriousness of this matter.
I must pay tribute to the Joint Under-Secretary who is to reply tonight. When this matter first arose, I consulted him, and he has done his very best to bring about the change for which I have asked, namely, immediate temporary rehousing of these unfortunate families, and a longterm policy designed to meet their permanent housing needs. It is no fault of his that tonight we are no further forward with this matter than we were three months ago when it was first raised by the British Legion.
The families are still there, with the exception of one. A man, his wife and child have escaped, and have probably got into a corner somewhere. I will warrant it is not a very good corner, and it may be a very bad house, like the Halkirk house, where two different families, comprising eighteen people, were living in a two-apartment house. Those hon. Members who saw pictures of that house in the newspapers will have some conception of the kind of house to which that family has probably escaped.
No action has been taken. The town council, which is the local authority responsible, discussed it. It may have been diffident about antagonising general opinion, but it has talked and is now considering renovating old houses. Those houses could be two or three centuries old. They would take a long time to renovate, and I doubt whether it would be worth while. It would be much quicker and perhaps cheaper to build new homes.
The immediate need is to get these people out of this cesspool. It is wrong that this sort of thing should continue in the Welfare State for three months. Unless the protest which I am making tonight is successful, it will continue for another three months. These things are apt to be forgotten, unless pressed. I know that the Secretary of State and the Joint Under-Secretary have pressed it, but they are still talking about doing something to old buildings.
The moment that this matter came to my notice, I went to the Under-Secretary of State for Air. I asked him to release some of the newly-renovated hutments on the aerodrome at Wick, an aerodrome which accommodated 1,700 airmen during the war and where none is now living. However, in anticipation of a squadron which will come up for a short summer visit to carry out some exercises—and it will be most welcome—a great deal of money and effort has been spent renovating the huts. If three or four could be taken, the problem about getting these families into conditions where they are protected against wind and weather and where water and sanitation are available would immediately be solved.
I asked a question about infection. I saw lovely children covered with scabs. The medical officer of health says that in


his opinion there is no risk of infection. I disagree. Conditions like those cannot be tolerated in our country. The people of Scotland are outraged about the position. I went to the Clerk of the Presbytery of the Church of Scotland at Lybster, and urged on him that the Church should take action. The Church has a part to play in this rehabilitation of the tinker families.
I called a meeting of the tinkers. Tinkers from this quarry and others attended. I told them of their rights to temporary housing and permanent housing, and the responsibilities which those rights carried with them of paying the rent promptly and being good citizens and neighbours. I answered their questions. I looked at them very carefully and thought that they were more sinned against than sinning.
I went to the National Assistance Board, because some of my supporters said that these men were getting £10 a week in National Assistance and doing nothing but live on the State. I found that that was wholly untrue, and that their record of employment is very good. They get only the roughest work. The women do rough field work and the men generally work in the docks. The National Assistance Board manager in Wick assured me that their record was equal to that of the rest of the people, and that there was no complaint on that score.
I have stated these things with regard to the quarry, and have given the background to it of lack of building. I could have added that it took two and a half to three years to complete a scheme of fifty houses in Caithness. When are we to get houses? At the rate which the county council is taking to replace 1,400 houses which are unfit for human habitation in the rural areas? They talk about demolishing 75 houses in the next three years. To deal with the 1,400 houses at the rate of 25 a year will take them thirty or forty years. That will not do. This job must be tackled as a matter of extreme urgency, and simultaneously a long-term plan of housing must be worked out.

11.26 p.m.

Mr. James McInnes: I confess to having the maximum sympathy with the case that the hon. Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Sir D.

Robertson) has raised. I have listened to him on other occasions when he has put Questions to the Secretary of State about this case.
We must assume that these six families, living in self-made hutments in a quarry, are in deplorable, indeed revolting, conditions. It is not for me to be critical of a local authority, and I do not want to be, more particularly when it is outwith the area that I represent; nor do I want to be critical of a medical officer of health or of a sanitary inspector. Nor—and it is unusual of me to say this—do I wish to be critical of the Scottish Office; but the conditions in this case are such that the Joint Under-Secretary of State must give me an assurance that every possible avenue has been explored to secure alternative accommodation for these families.
Is the Minister aware that under Section 61 of the Housing (Scotland) Act, 1950, the local authority has power with regard to acquisition, conversion and adaptation, and matters of that sort? Could he assure us that the local authority is exercising that power? Under Section 58 of the same Act the medical officer of health is in duty bound to submit to the Secretary of State information with regard to cases of this kind, after consultation with the local sanitary inspector.
As I listened to the hon. Member I gathered that there is contiguous to the quarry an airfield, and that on the airfield are Government buildings. Could the Joint Under-Secretary assure us that the local authority has exercised its powers under Section 92 of the 1950 Act to acquire one of the large Nissen huts that may exist on the airfield, if it is suitable for accommodation for these families, or, if it be necessary, two or three Nissen huts? I need not remind the hon. Gentleman that a local authority taking action of that kind would be given the necessary subsidies provided under the Housing Acts.
My participation in the debate is merely to seek some assurance that all the elements involved in this matter—including the Scottish Office, because no doubt it has the full facts of the case. apart from the statements of the hon. Member, from the medical officer of health and the local authority—are


exploring every possible avenue in order that we may relieve these people from the distresing and revolting conditions in which they are living.

11.31 p.m.

The Joint Under-Secretary of State for Scotland (Mr. J. Nixon Browne): I have listened very carefully to what my hon. Friend the Member for Caithness and Sutherland (Sir D. Robertson) and the hon. Member for Glasgow, Central (Mr. McInnes) have said about this case, which has already been the subject of correspondence and Questions in the House.
The facts are well established by inquiries which we have made from the town council of Wick and by inspections made by the officers of the Department of Health, who have visited the locality. The conditions are admittedly bad. No one would want to minimise the seriousness, from the public health point of view, of the conditions under which these families are living. No one would want to delay the solution of the problem for a single day longer than is necessary.
Although the accommodation occupied by the families at Hillhead Quarry is not Service property, as is the case with so many camps occupied by squatter families, and although the accommodation is not property for which either the Government or the town council of Wick have otherwise any responsibility as owners, there is a basic resemblance between conditions there and those at some of the squatter camps which for all practical purposes puts the cases into the same category. It may therefore lend perspective to the discussion if in the first place I tell the House briefly of the effects of the policy which we have been pursuing in trying to get rid of these hutted camps.
At the peak, there were 4,260 families in camps, on 5th January, 1950. By 5th May, 1954, the number had been reduced to 1,196 families and a year later, on 5th May, 1955, the problem had been nearly halved by the reduction of families to 723. In the year to 5th May. 1956, the number had been halved again, so that the number now remaining to be dealt with is only 345 families, against 4,260 in 1950.
I give those figures in order to show that energetic and effective action is being taken throughout the whole country to get rid of the unsatisfactory conditions which exist in properties of this kind. We shall continue to work for the complete elimination of the problem, although I am bound to say that as we get down to rock bottom the difficulties become greater and progress becomes slower.
The difficulties are no less at Wick than elsewhere. The situation at Hillhead Quarry, which has been the site of tinker camps for at least twenty years, is that five families occupy five small huts at the edge of the quarry, apparently without the authority of the owner of the land or of the town council, and without paying any rent. Only one man has been living in the quarry continuously for five years, in a hut supplied by the British Legion. The rest of the families are nomadic. They stay for a few weeks or months, and then other families take their places.
There are no sanitary facilities, which is the worst feature of the case, and water is carried in containers in an old pram from a standpipe about 600 yards away. I am told, however, that no cases of infectious disease have been notified from the camp in the last five years. I have little doubt, too, that these conditions in Wick can be paralleled in some of the camps still occupied in other parts of the country; but, as with these other camps, the families should be rehoused and the huts demolished as soon as possible.
My hon. Friend brought the conditions at Hillhead Quarry to the notice of the Scottish Office in March last, and the suggestion has been made that the Town Council of Wick and the City Council of Caithness should be directed, under Section 48 of the Housing (Scotland) Act, 1950, to submit forthwith proposals for the rehousing of the families in question. The powers of direction in that Section are, however, intended for use when a local authority is in default of its statutory duty to put an end to overcrowding in its district, and there is no question of default here. Both the town council and the county council have good housing records and the use of default powers against them could not possibly be justified. It is only fair to the local authorities that this should be said.
My hon. Friend mentioned the record of the Caithness County Council. The Caithness County Council, which is one of the more remote of our local authorities, has built a total of 360 houses since the war, an average of 33 houses a year. Now that there is a greater demand than before on the building resources of the district for other purposes—notably Dounreay—my right hon. Friend considered that the erection of 120 houses during the next three years, representing an increased average output of 40 houses a year, despite the competition of other works, was not unreasonable, and he approved the county council's proposals accordingly. If experience shows that the county council could do better, it will of course do so, but it cannot build beyond its building resources.
Apart from this, the inquiries which the Department has made show that neither of the authorities has any wish to discriminate against tinker families in housing. Tinker families have, in fact, been rehoused both in the county and in the town since the war under the local authorities' housing porgrammes. On the other hand, the local authorities are understandably unable to give to families in this class priority over others who have been on their waiting lists for a very long time and who have patiently waited for their turn for new accommodation. I understand that there are 500 applicants on the Wick waiting list and about 200 on the county list.
In contrast, only one of the families at the Hillhead Quarry has applied to the county council for accommodation, and one only, within the last three weeks, to the town council. The three remaining families have made no application at all. That is an essential step if they are to be considered for permanent housing accommodation. They have not even made an application. None of the families has complained to the local authorities about its conditions.
I can assure my hon. Friend that both the local authorities are most anxious to co-operate in the solution of this problem. Both are against any solution involving the erection of other huts. Although we have tried to do something about the aerodrome, I can assure my hon. Friend

that it is quite impossible; every effort has been made. Having regard to planning and public health considerations, we feel that the only right policy is to demolish the camps and to put the people into proper permanent accommodation. The county council is looking in some of the villages in the county for existing properties which could be acquired and, by the exercise of the council's powers under the Act of 1954, made to provide more tolerable conditions for these families. Similarly, the town council is considering the acquisition of two houses in Wick which could be made available in the same way.
One point must be made crystal clear. If local government is to be a live force, as it should be, then it should be given more than nominal responsibilities. It should not be required to defer to the central Government on any issue, however important it may be, if it is essentially local in character. In the field of housing the central Government decided, and successive Governments of different political colour have maintained, that the local authority is the proper unit of administration.
They therefore provided that the building, letting and management of Stateaided houses should be in the hands of the local authorities.
Once authority is handed over to responsible bodies it is not right to complain to the central Government as to how they exercise that authority provided that they do so in a responsible way. Nor would it be proper or right for my right hon. Friend to intervene in the day-today conduct of their affairs. In an effort to be helpful my right hon. Friend has gone to great pains in discussing with the local authorities concerned how this difficult case can best be dealt with, but it would not be right for him, nor would it be right for my hon. Friend to ask him, to take from them any part of that authority which Parliament has clearly put in the hands of the local authorities concerned.

Question put and agreed to.

Adjourned accordingly at nineteen minutes to Twelve o'clock.